Swimming to the Top of the Tide
Finding Life Where Land and Water Meet
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3.5 • 2 Ratings
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
Four seasons of immersion in New England’s Great Marsh
“Like Wendell Berry and Rachel Carson, Hanlon is a true poet-ecologist, sharing in exquisitely resonant prose her patient observations of nature’s most intimate details. As she and her husband, through summer and snow, swim their local creeks and estuaries, we marvel at the timeless yet fragile terrain of both marshlands and marriage. This is the book to awaken all of us, right now, to how our coastline is changing and what it means for our future.” —Julia Glass, author of Three Junes and A House Among the Trees
The Great Marsh is the largest continuous stretch of salt marsh in New England, extending from Cape Ann to New Hampshire. Patricia Hanlon and her husband built their home and raised their children alongside it. But it is not until the children are grown that they begin to swim the tidal estuary daily. Immersing herself, she experiences, with all her senses in all seasons, the vigor of a place where the two ecosystems of fresh and salt water mix, merge, and create new life.
In Swimming to the Top of the Tide, Hanlon lyrically charts her explorations, at once intimate and scientific. Noting the disruptions caused by human intervention, she bears witness to the vitality of the watersheds, their essential role in the natural world, and the responsibility of those who love them to contribute to their sustainability.
Patricia Hanlon is a visual artist who paints the beautiful ecosystem of New England’s Great Marsh and is involved in the watershed organizations of Greater Boston. Swimming to the Top of the Tide is her first book.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Hanlon, an artist and longtime coastal Massachusetts resident, tours New England's Great Marsh in her charming debut, vividly capturing the natural beauty and geological history of the watershed along the Massachusetts and New Hampshire coast. The first part of Hanlon's survey sees her and her husband "exploring the same landscapes over and over": after her children grew up and left home, Hanlon writes, she and her husband browsed the beaches, quarries, and saltwater creeks that form the marsh, and she turns the quotidian details of marriage and family life into a lyrical investigation of "something bigger and more complex than oneself" as she and her husband "made a pact with each other to swim every time we possibly could." The second part sheds light on such environmental concerns as habitat loss and overfishing, and interviews with scientists (such as a marine biologist who studies nitrogen runoff) enrich the story without breaking the flow. Merging leisurely seaside adventure with ecological sensibilities, Hanlon delivers a lyrical ode to a changing environment: "Places become real when they are loved," she writes. This is bound to please both environmentalists and anyone in search of a breezy dip into nature.
Customer Reviews
Swimming To The Top Of The Tide
I received this book through LibraryThing as an ARC, and the publisher generously included a second book, A Wilder Time: Notes from a Geologist at the Edge of the Greenland Ice by William E. Glassley, which I'll be getting to soon. Thank you, Bellevue Literary Press.
This book begins with a quick bit of geography of the Atlantic coast of the US witnessed from a commercial airline window seat, then arriving home focuses in on Cape Ann, including a mention of history thereof, building to the author's interest in tidal zones.
As noted in the introduction, part one of the book is a chronology of the year from July 2008 to the following summer. That concerning exploring the local tidal estuary waterways, noticing more and more of Nature's essential, intimate details where two ecologies blend, jostle, and bring forth new life.
Part two, on the other hand, is the author's attempt to understand something of our current cultural and evolutionary moment.
I applaud the author for adding her voice to the eco-lit/Nature ranks, but perhaps because I'm an extensive reader, naturalist, and writer I found the writing of the first part verging on bland and the characters paper cutouts. That, in excess travelog like excursions and setting details, with little depth of meaning brought out. The points made are subtle, mostly of the was and now historical vein. Yes, it's non-fiction, but even so I'd expect the writing to be a little more engrossing, to keep those that need to read the book from nodding off, and more effort into enticing the reader to think about our effects on our life sustaining environment.
The second part showed more variety in using various anecdotes, leading to subtle effects on our little blue canoe.
And, to me, the concluding paragraphs were disappointing.
Don't get me wrong, I applaud all approaches to instilling better understanding of the natural world that sustains our being, and this book's approach may be a good starting point for some. Nor am I advocating a fire and brimstone approach to eco-lit. Maybe it's that at my late point in life I'm increasingly impatient with our culturally inculcated apathy regarding the natural world, and subjective avoidance of inconvenient, serious issues affecting humankind.
“Live as if your Life has consequences far beyond your understanding. It does.” ~ Duncan Morrison
Enhance your frame of reference with a balance of meaningful reading. Please, for the sake of our, our children's, and all the innocents whose futures are threatened.