update

[Connie]

Does anyone know what became of Jan Little or the author John Man? I am very curious to know about her life once she came back from the Amazon and if she benefited health wise from access to better medical care?

[Yvonne]

I have just finished reading her book for the second time. I also am wondering what happened after she left the jungle.

[Sanne]

I read this book back in 1997 and was completely blown away by it. I couldn't put it down, it was so compelling. Jan Little was a woman who had a dream.....and then things happened along the way. If I had a copy, I'd read it again...such an incredible story.

[H.b.]

The Survival of Jan Little- a tragic heart-wrenching story- has gripped me in so many ways. It was hard to finish and yet, impossible to put down. I felt I needed to finish it to honor Jan Little, and her daughter Rebecca. For their sake I am trying to make sense of the sheer tragedy their life in the jungle became.

I can sympathize with Jan's initial vision of "homesteading," of living off the land; Of wanting to provide an enriched, educational and adventurous life for Becca. I think she set out with good intentions, and in their earlier years (in Mexico) they may have even achieved that. Though as the story unfolds, as they move deeper into the jungle, we see Harry's eccentric, Christian ideals become increasingly rigid, while he becomes more physically inept and controlling. Sitting back shouting out demands, complaining, whining and driving his wife and step daughter to their breaking point.

Sadly, Jan succumbed to what many women of her generation did, the law of the husband. Yet in their total isolation,five days paddle up a narrow Amazonian river, and with her physical disabilities being near blind and deaf, their trap became inescapable. But Jan survives. After the mysterious death of her daughter and husband, she manages to live alone in the jungle, chopping wood, making fires and finding her way through the jungle until she is "rescued."

I will be thinking about this story for awhile. Trying to make sense out of what could have been. But I suppose that is what Jan Little tried to do, and in the end her only choice was to move forward and survive.

[Pat]

I read this book when it was first published in the late 1980s and have never forgotten it. At the link below a friend of Jan Little's states that as of 2012 she lived outside Los Angeles and was 82 years old; the following excerpt from a recent letter from Jan Little to her friend is included on the website:

"When I become lost under the heavy weight of discouragement, disappointment, even deep anger, I remember that some twenty billion humans have come before me. They have endured and persevered past suffering. So many contended with greater hardships than what weighs upon me. I have shelter, food and other humans who know and care for me in some adequate measure. I feel I should give Life my best effort; as good as I can muster..... By the time I was fifty, I knew, deeply so, that Death was not the issue. Existing with gratitude and humor is the most flavorful response to Life and makes it the most easily digested. Enjoyment can dilute regret.”

http://cowbird.com/story/52931/Lost_I...

[Patrick]

Jan is well and a still a very determined lady. 12/12/2017

[Patrick]

I am sad to inform that Jan passed away on February 10, 2018.
She was a remarkable woman. She is missed.

[Sanne]

Thank you for this news Patrick. She was a most remarkable woman wasn't she. RIP Jan.

[Charlotte]

I had read that she had an operation that restored her eyesight, at least partially.

[Kathryn]

Connie wrote: "Does anyone know what became of Jan Little or the author John Man? I am very curious to know about her life once she came back from the Amazon and if she benefited health wise from access to better..."
I just came across Jan Little’s obituary, she died in 2018. It appears that she never received any money from the book, which I find upsetting.

[Cheryl]

I also read that in her obituary and I wondered exactly what happened there. Did she give up rights? Did the author fall out with her? They seemed very close at the end of the book having put together a funeral and revisiting the homestead. This author is well respected and has written many historical novels so it seems strange that would be added to her obituary.