Fast into the Night: A Woman, Her Dogs, and Their Journey North on the Iditarod Trail - Hardcover

Originally from Connecticut, DEBBIE CLARKE MODEROW went to Alaska in 1979 for a mountain-climbing expedition and met her husband, Mark. For the Moderows, dog mushing has always been a family affair. Debbie ran the Iditarod in 2003 and 2005, completing the latter in 13 days, 19 hours, 10 minutes, and 32 seconds. In 2013 Debbie graduated from Pacific Lutheran University's Rainier Writing Workshop with an MFA in creative writing.

Advance Praise for Fast into the Night:

Not only does Fast into the Night detail in spare and honest prose all the grit and excitement that is the Iditarod, but its author aptly takes us along on her personal journey with all its internal struggles, tribulations, and tumult. At the same time she captures the remarkable bond that exists between mushers and their dogs, and the interplay they must share in order to make their goal of reaching Nome a reality. Bravo for turning out what may be the quintessential Iditarod story, and for crafting what is simply a great Alaskan adventure well told.
Dave Atcheson, author of Dead Reckoning and Hidden Alaska

Personal, vivid, and authentic, Fast into the Night lives up to its title. Moderow s ability to project emotion through her graceful prose had me from the start, and never let go. Through moments of failure and triumph, Moderow s love for family, her dogs, and the grand adventure of life shine forth.
Nick Jans, author of A Wolf Called Romeo

Moderow heard the call of the wild. She writes about racing dogs through the wilderness lyrically like Robert Service writes about seeking adventure in far off places. She heard the challenge, learned the lessons with her dogs, paid the costs, and won the enthralling and inspiring experience. It s a book you can t put down.
Lynne Cox, author of Swimming to Antarctica and Elizabeth, Queen of the Seas

I expected high adventure from Debbie Moderow s story of running the Iditarod and happily, I found it. Moderow beautifully captures the personality of each dog as she struggles to earn the team s trust, and she reveals her own vulnerabilities as she learns to trust herself. Crossing the finish line, it turns out, requires resilience as much as endurance, humility more than strength. This is an extraordinary account of a family s faith in one another four-leggeds and two-leggeds alike.
Sherry Simpson, author of The Way Winter Comes and Dominion of Bears

At age forty-seven, a mother of two, Debbie Moderow was not your average musher in the Iditarod, but that s where she found herself when, less than two hundred miles from the finish line, her dogs decided they didn t want to run anymore. After all her preparation, after all the careful management of her team, and after running so well for over a week, the huskies balked. But the sting of not completing the race after coming so far was nothing compared to the disappointment Moderow felt in having lost touch with her dogs.

Fast into the Night is the gripping story of Moderow s journeys along the Iditarod trail with her team of spunky huskies: Taiga and Lil Su, Piney and Creek, Nacho and Zeppy, Juliet and Kanga. Kanga was the headstrong beauty, a fine leader and the object of Moderow s particular affection. She was to be the key to Moderow s success on the trail, but her Alpha ways proved troublesome to Moderow and the rest of the team as they set off on their eleven-hundred-mile adventure toward Nome. Their first attempt ended unceremoniously, with a scratch and a crushing blow to Moderow s confidence in what she knew of her dogs. But Moderow hit the trail again two years later, and despite injuries, dropped dogs, hallucinations, epic storms, flipped sleds, and clashing personalities, she and her team prevailed, their human/canine bond never stronger.

Part adventure, part love story, part inquiry into the mystery of the connection between humans and dogs, Fast into the Night is an exquisitely written memoir of a woman, her dogs, and what can happen when someone puts herself in that place between daring and doubt and soldiers on.