Acclaimed author Erik Reece spends a year beside a rural Kentucky stream, in close observation of the natural world’s cycles, revelations, and redemptions.
A critic once wrote that Rebecca West’s
Black Lamb and Grey Falcon
was about two things: Yugoslavia and everything else. Something similar might be said about
Clear Creek
. In this boundary-defying work, Erik Reece spends a year beside the stream in his rural Kentucky homeplace, tracking the movements of the seasons, the animals, and the thoughts passing through his mind.
is a series of vignettes that calls us out of our frenzied, digitized world to a slower, more contemplative way of being. Reece’s subjects range from solitude and solidarity to the intricacies of forest communities, and from the genius of songwriter Tom T. Hall to reforestation projects on abandoned strip mines. A work of close observation and carefully grounded insights,
articulates a nature-based philosophy for pondering humanity’s current plight.