PORTLAND PRESS HERALD • July 3, 2025
The Appalachian Trail Conservancy website lists Maine as “the A.T.’s most challenging, rugged and remote state” with “the wildest feel of any area of the Trail.” It’s the perfect place, in other words, to set a missing person mystery — although in reality, relatively few hikers get badly lost on the trail, and most who do go astray are found within 24 hours. This is part of why the story of Geraldine Largay, a real-life 66-year-old hiker and retired nurse who went missing in 2013, caught the attention of so many. The other reason, of course, is that when her remains were finally found two years after she disappeared, a journal was discovered with her body, detailing how stunningly long she’d survived on her own. One of the people whose imagination was sparked by Largay’s tragic disappearance and discovery is Amity Gaige, whose fifth novel, “Heartwood,” is about the disappearance of a slow-hiking, anxious, journal-keeping nurse walking the Appalachian Trail in Maine.