Skinny Dipping: And Other Immersions in Water, Myth, and Being Human

by Janet Lembke, The Lyons Press (Editor)

Overview

The author of the acclaimed Dangerous Birds followed that success with a new collection of essays on the natural world, these connected by the theme of water: exploring issues as varied as the joy that water brings, the wistful rememberings it engenders, and its sacredness. As with all of Lembke’s essays, the world of classical myth and its characters meld with her native haunts and their people, lending resonance to the seemingly simplest things: a beetle in the garden, a tangle of forgotten roses, an afternoon rainstorm.

Now available in paperback for the first time, Skinny Dipping brings us waters as diverse as the mythical River Styx and the Bullpasture, a stream near Lembke’s Virginia home. In the title essay she looks down a long corridor of time to visit Pliny, the natural historian, for a "skinny dip" in A.D. 79; "Up the Creek" examines a lazy day’s canoe trip with a frightened young friend about to leave home; "And This Way the Water Comes Down at the Gorge" is a tale of a burial—with a fine supporting cast of Faulkneresque characters. Skinny Dipping will delight all lovers of Janet Lembke’s other books, and anyone who appreciates the art of the personal essay.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780813922850
Publisher:	University of Virginia Press
Publication date:	03/31/2004
Series:	The Virginia Bookshelf Series
Pages:	192
Product dimensions:	6.00(w) x 9.00(h) x 1.00(d)
Age Range:	18 Years

About the Author

Janet Lembke is the author of Dangerous Birds, River Time, and Looking for Eagles, and is a translator of Greek and Latin classics. She divides her time between homes in Virginia and North Carolina, never too far from a good swimming hole.

Table of Contents

	Introduction	1
	Skinny dipping	9
	Touching earth	15
	Invitation to a rainy day	19
	Ring-a-ring o'roses	27
	Who has seen the wind?	47
	Up the creek	59
	The mad swimmer of beeman cove	73
	The waters of night	99
	The reports from the river styx	109
	The frog king	137
	And this way the water comes down at the gorge	147

Editorial Reviews

For readers who appreciate the essay form in all its complexity, Lembke's fluid style can challenge and fascinate. She goes in and out of mythology and fact, fairy tale and history, past and present, like a practiced swimmer diving beneath a wave and floating on the next one, always aware of the underlying current but buoyed by new surprises at every swell.

Chicago Tribune

[Lembke's] ability to pull together disparate elements in her writing is impressive, and her passionate connection with the natural world is displayed in line after line.

New York Times Book Review

"Lembke is one of today's finest nature writers. "—author of Library Journal

"Wholly captivating. "—author of Publishers Weekly

"[Lembke's] ability to pull together disparate elements in her writing is impressive, and her passionate connection with the natural world is displayed in line after line. "—author of New York Times Book Review

"For readers who appreciate the essay form in all its complexity, Lembke's fluid style can challenge and fascinate. She goes in and out of mythology and fact, fairy tale and history, past and present, like a practiced swimmer diving beneath a wave and floating on the next one, always aware of the underlying current but buoyed by new surprises at every swell. "—author of Chicago Tribune

From the Publisher

For readers who appreciate the essay form in all its complexity, Lembke's fluid style can challenge and fascinate. She goes in and out of mythology and fact, fairy tale and history, past and present, like a practiced swimmer diving beneath a wave and floating on the next one, always aware of the underlying current but buoyed by new surprises at every swell.

Chicago Tribune

Her theme is water, and Lembke ( Dangerous Birds ) takes us from the River Styx to the subantarctic island clusters of New Zealand, from an 18th-century survey to find the source of the Rappahannock River to the Luray Caverns of Virginia. With a friend she paddles up a narrow creek on a torrid afternoon; she plays host to a group of sailing campers marooned by wind. One essay remembers a favorite uncle and his love of the Bullpasture River in western Virginia; another describes a walk with Sally Doberman, the family dog. Lembke blends classical allusions with acute observations of people and places; her graceful essays, most of which are published here for the first time, are sheer pleasure to read. This may be her best collection to date. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly