How
does one recover from disaster? That question is at the heart of
Marybeth Holleman’s lyrical, elegiac response to the
repercussions of the Exxon Valdez oil spill, which devastated
Alaska’s Prince William Sound in 1989. Intertwining the
destruction of an ecosystem, the disintegration of her marriage, and
her emerging identity as a new mother, Holleman explores the resiliency
of nature—both wild and human—and the ways in which that
resiliency is tested.
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While much of nature writing is about the search for an unspoiled landscape, The Heart of the Sound is about what happens when such a place is irrevocably damaged. |
In language rich with passion and hard-won insight
and imbued with descriptions that give voice to the place, Holleman
creates a captivating story of a woman who found her Eden in the
sweeping fjords of Alaska’s Prince William Sound only to almost
lose it to ecological tragedy. Speaking as a witness and survivor, she
discovers what it means to love what remains.
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The Heart of the Sound
An Alaskan Paradise Found and Nearly Lost
by Marybeth Holleman
Bison Books,
2010
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a copy
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