Surfacing

Under the ravishing light of an Alaskan sky, objects are spilling from the thawing tundra linking a Yup'ik village to its huntergatherer past. In the shifting sand dunes of a Scottish shoreline, impressively preserved hearths and homes of Neolithic farmers are uncovered. In a grandmother's disordered mind, memories surface of a longago mining accident and a 'mither who was kind'. In this luminous new essay collection, acclaimed author Kathleen Jamie visits archeological sites and mines her own memories of her grandparents, of youthful travels to explore what surfaces and what reconnects us to our past.

As always she looks to the natural world for her markers and guides. Most movingly, she considers, as her father dies and her children leave home, the surfacing of an older, less tethered sense of herself. Surfacing' offers a profound sense of time passing and an antidote to all that is instant, ephemeral, unrooted.