A Pearl in the Storm: How I Found My Heart in the Middle of the Ocean by Tori Murden McClure Search Amazon for other books by or about Tori Murden McClure. Rating: Reviewed by: Kathleen Lewis

Tori Murden McClure is one hell of a woman. She's six feet tall and wears a size 12 shoe. She holds a Master's degree in divinity (M.Div.) from Harvard, a law degree, and an MFA in writing. Throughout her youth, she beat up anybody who picked on her developmentally disabled older brother. As an adult, she worked for Muhammad Ali. She actually proposed to the man who would become her husband. And she is an accomplished endurance athlete--the first woman to ski over land to the South Pole and the first woman to row alone across the Atlantic Ocean.

McClure's memoir, A Pearl in the Storm: How I Found My Heart in the Middle of the Ocean, is her accounting of that 1998 voyage during what would become the worst North Atlantic hurricane season on record. And it might surprise the reader to learn that she made that daunting, dangerous journey because, despite her physical prowess and intellectual accomplishments, she was sick and tired of feeling helpless.

McClure chronicles her crossing, weaving in painful flashbacks about a childhood spent protecting her brother and the complicated reasons for her extensive educational journey. The result is a multi-layered book that is part adventure travelogue, part inspirational/spiritual journey, part romance, and part feminist statement.

Along the way she quotes many of her literary, philosophical, and historical heroes: Helen Keller (Life is either a daring adventure or nothing.), Dante (Midway in our life's journey, I went astray from the straight road, and woke to find myself alone in a dark wood.), and Theodore Roosevelt (Far better it is to dare mighty things...than to rank with those poor spirits who neither enjoy much or suffer much.), along with Melville, Aeschylus, Joseph Campbell, Samuel Johnson and more. She also offers some nuggets of her own: "The written word is the connective tissue of human experience." "Courage is knowledge; knowledge is courage." "Without darkness, one cannot see the stars." "Somewhere in the 'silence' of the sea, I learned to listen." And somewhere along the way, McClure realizes that in her quest to cultivate her mind, test her body, and exorcise her demons, she has somehow neglected to listen to her heart.

A Pearl in the Storm turns out to be, after all, about matters of the heart. Read it if you've ever yearned to make a life-changing, epic quest of your own, or if you've ever felt the need to lose yourself in order to find yourself. Read it if you're in the mood to be inspired by an admirable woman. Read it. Read it and weep.

Oh, and did I mention that McClure was recently inaugurated as President of Spalding University?