Authors on the Air host Pam Stack welcomes multi-talented IRENE O'GARDEN to the show. IRENE O’GARDEN has won or been nominated for prizes in nearly every writing category from stage to screen, hardcovers, children’s books as well as literary magazines and anthologies. About the book: Risking the Rapids opens with the shocking death of O’Garden’s older brother, which prompts her and other relatives to seek closure on a journey through the remotest spot in Montana. Described genially as a river “float”, a harrowing journey unfolds. This wilderness trip is contrasted with O’Garden’s account of growing up with her six siblings in a clashing Catholic family. From O'Garden: So excited to share news of my new memoir: Risking The Rapids: How My Wilderness Adventure Healed My Childhood.I grew up in a repressed mid-century Midwest household with six other siblings, a TV-personality father, an icy mother and rivers of martinis. The shocking death of my problematic older brother in 2014 prompted me (at age 62) and other relatives to seek closure on a journey through the remotest spot in the lower forty-eight, Montana’s Bob Marshall Wilderness. What was described as a genial river “float” became a harrowing whitewater experience. That story, braided with the narrative of my corrosive upbringing and subsequent healing, is told in these pages.I am eager to share that it is never too late to heal from family damage, that risk assists recovery and that being afraid is nothing to be afraid of.