Every Version of Wild

Cheryl Strayed's memoir of grief, addiction, and 1,100 miles of Pacific Crest Trail has crossed from page to screen, spawning one of the decade's most personal book-to-film adaptations.

From the trail to the page to the screen

In 2012, Cheryl Strayed published Wild: From Lost to Found on the Pacific Crest Trail, a memoir about hiking 1,100 miles of the PCT alone in 1995 while processing her mother's death, her divorce, and a heroin addiction. It became a phenomenon: an Oprah's Book Club pick, a New York Times bestseller, and a catalyst for a measurable surge in PCT thru-hiker applications. The story had one major screen life, the 2014 film directed by Jean-Marc Vallee with a script by Nick Hornby, but Strayed's voice traveled further through her other work. Her advice column Dear Sugar became the book Tiny Beautiful Things (2012), which found its own adaptation as a Hulu limited series in 2023 with Kathryn Hahn. Wild as a story has not been widely remade or reimagined, which means the original memoir and its one faithful film are the complete picture.

Wild across the years

1995Cheryl Strayed hikes the PCT solo, the journey at the memoir's core
2012Memoir published Wild
2012Advice collection published
2014Film released Wild
2023Hulu limited series Tiny Beautiful Things

Tiny Beautiful Things is the underrated Strayed

Most people who loved Wild never picked up Tiny Beautiful Things, the collection of Strayed's Dear Sugar advice columns. It is more emotionally complex, more formally inventive, and arguably more moving than the memoir. The 2023 Hulu series with Kathryn Hahn is also stronger than its modest press suggested, a quiet drama that earns its finale.