Light In The Trees
By Gail Folkins
What a lovingly rendered memoir.
This book is a thoughtful recollection of family and home, set in the Puget
Sound area. Enjoy lots of familiar sights, sounds, and events included. The
author captures a time growing up in her family home at the foot of the Cascade
Mountains, near Seattle. As the author grows and changes, we also watch as her
wilderness does the same. Just as we read of how their environment shapes
people, and so often in surprising ways described in the book, so we also read
of how this wilderness grows into suburb from the affect of people.
The author almost poetically
presents life in the Pacific Northwest with hiking, gardens, wildlife, family,
and the beauty of it all from forests to beaches and so much in between.
There’s also the amusing affect of Sasquatch myths on a young girls
imagination. The darker side of nature is poignantly described - the storms,
fire, volcano, and also the darker side of human nature with serial killer
realities. The author has captured a most intriguing time in Seattle history.
The intrinsic affect people
absorb from the environment they live in is shown in a most fascinating way.
Over time, as a person matures, grows in knowledge, it’s enchanting to read how
a person’s views and memories evolve. The author captures that evolution
beautifully. Just as a person changes, so too does the environment around them.
It’s a relationship that can be noticed in great leaps of time, but what’s so
special about this book is that the author describes so well the small steps of
change so that you are truly experiencing moments. These are insightful
descriptions you’ll want to linger over. Later in the memoir the author moves
to the Southwest, and shares such interesting contrasts and surprising
comparisons between the two regions. She makes frequent trips back to her
Seattle home, seeing and sharing family and home town changes discovered with
each trip.
Gail Folkins is an author and a
teacher. Light In The Trees is not
just a lyrical memoir, but also includes a seamlessly intertwined history
lesson. Her other book is Texas Dance
Halls: A Two-Step Circuit which is a nonfiction book about eighteen dance
halls, meeting their musicians, owners, and patrons who keep these historic
sites humming.
Now you too can follow that Light In The Trees, to home in the
Pacific Northwest.
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