Leaving Resurrection [Large Print]

By Eva Saulitis

Book Overview

Leaving Resurrection is one woman's love poem to the Alaskan places and people that have taken possession of her soul. Eva Saulitis writes with great honesty about her vulnerability and fears, about... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Large Print: Yes
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1459646800
• ISBN13: 9781459646803
• Release Date: December 2012
• Publisher: ReadHowYouWant
• Length: 368 Pages
• Weight: 1.57 lbs.
• Dimensions: 10.0" x 0.8" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

I love this book.

I love the way Eva Saulitis stitches the rich textures of human personalities and emotions securely into the intimate details and moods of the natural world. I love the way she tells her stories like poems, her themes making overlapping patterns as they layer in and out like waves on the beach, like the weather, sunny and then gray. She writes about deep challenges and loss with such honesty and beauty that reading the book is like putting on a yummy sweater. I wrote my name in the front of my copy and lent it to my friend, Bette. She accidentally left it on an airplane. The woman who found it called me and asked if she could finish it before she returned it. After I got it back, I had to lend it to Bette again so she could finish it. It is that kind of a book.

Intensely personal, powerful essays

Eva Saulitis brings the curious and probing mind of a scientist and the heart of a poet to Leaving Resurrection, her new - and first - collection of essays. Set mostly in and around the waters of Alaska's Gulf Coast (but with forays to the Interior), these intensely personal essays explore her relationship with the land- and seascape, with the scientific method and indigenous ways of knowing, with friends and family and other researchers, and with the killer whales that keep bringing her back to Prince William Sound, Resurrection Bay, and the Gulf of Alaska. But more than anything, I think, the essays present Eva's attempts to understand her internal landscape and her place in the world. Before reading the book, I'd met Eva a couple of times at literary events, so I know her, but only casually. My initial impressions of her didn't prepare me at all for what I found in the book; many of the essays explore the darker, shadow side of being human while reflecting upon fear, anxieties, depression, isolation, suicide, and other tragedies both human and more than human. While she describes the life of a scientist, Saulitis bares the heart and soul of a poet in these pages. At times the pain and darkness were almost too much; as one who also tends to agonize and worry, I wished she wouldn't be so hard on herself. But the strength of the writing and story-telling - and her own courageous spirit and the hopeful side of her nature - carried this reader through and at times lifted me up. It showed me more of what's possible, in both stories and being human. There is great power to be found in these essays, just as there's power - and healing - to be found in exploring the shadow sides of ourselves, our families, our culture. I know with certainty that I'll return to some of Eva's stories again. I especially appreciated the essays in which Eva explored and reflected upon the scientific method and other ways of knowing and found the essay "Epilogue: Letters to David" to be especially provocative in that regard. I think it's among the strongest pieces in the collection and my favorite of the bunch. Another favorite, perhaps because of my own passion for wolves, is "Looking for Gubbio." I also love the way she juxtaposes T'ai Chi, her musical past, and the necessity of both personal and diesel engine maintenance in "One-Hundred-Hour Maintenance." And I was deeply moved by the more introverted essays, "Walking on Caribou Lake with Bill" and "Six Hundred and Fifty Pieces of Glass." I have a greater understanding of, and appreciation for, life on the water after reading the essay from which the book's title is taken, "Leaving Resurrection." It's not a book for someone seeking a light or easy read, but I'd highly recommend it for readers interested in notions of the "human shadow"; different ways of knowing - and being in - the world; the nature the killer whales that swim in Alaska's Gulf Coast waters and the people (both western scientist and Native) who study

Alaska with Depth

This book of independent yet related lyrical essays is a weighty contribution to the body of "Alaska literature" that both inhabits and transcends the category. The subject matter is often very regional--Alaskan research, economy, weather, temperments--and it reads true to a fellow Alaskan. Yet I imagine it would resonate with many who have never set foot in the state. In addition to natural history subject matter, it also tackles personal themes--depression, family history, identity, marriage--in a way that exposes just the right amount to create a sense of intimacy without the voyeurism too many memoirs seem to cultivate. A deeply pleasurable and pleasurably deep read.