High Hopes

Fans of Cheryl Strayed’s Wild will root for Anne Abel as she intrepidly sets out alone for Australia at the age of sixty, seeking to capture some Bruce Springsteen energy and fight off her lifelong, debilitating depression.

At the age of fifty-nine, Anne has never been to a concert. Then, she reluctantly goes to a Bruce Springsteen concert—a man she knows nothing about—to spend time with her son and daughter-in-law. For three-plus hours Bruce Springsteen’s energy, humanity, and enthusiasm lift her out of her lifelong depression and makes her feel alive.

A year later, due to increasing classroom violence where she taught, Anne walks out the door thinking, I’m never coming back. But, getting into her car to go home, she realizes that because she suffers with severe recurrent depression, without the structure and focus of teaching she will be at risk for falling into a deep depression. She’s been inpatient twice at a psychiatric hospital, had three regimens of electroconvulsive shock therapy, and tried over twenty medications. Anne needs a new and different plan. Then she remembers: in four months Bruce Springsteen will be touring in Australia. So even though Anne hates to travel and be alone, she books the trip. Eight concerts, five cities, twenty-six days. She hopes that harnessing some of Bruce Springsteen’s energy will keep her out of the abyss.

Anne doesn’t go on this trip to change. But much to her surprise, she returns home a different person.