Awards

• Winner of Shortlisted for the 2013 ASLE Award in Environment.

Overview

In this memoir of the Hudson River and of her family, Susan Fox Rogers writes from a fresh perspective: the seat of her kayak. Low in the water, she explores the bays and the larger estuary, riding the tides, marveling over sturgeons and eels, eagles and herons, and spotting the remains of the ice and cement industries. After years of dipping her paddle into the waters off the village of Tivoli, she came to know the rocks and tree limbs, currents and eddies, mansions and islands so well that she claimed that section of the river as her own: her reach. Woven into Rogers's intimate exploration of the river is the story of her life as a woman in the outdoors-rock climbing and hiking as well as kayaking. Rogers writes of the Hudson River with skill and vivacity. Her strong sense of place informs her engagement with a waterway that lured the early Dutch settlers, entranced nineteenth-century painters, and has been marked by decades of pollution. The river and the communities along its banks become partners in Rogers's life and vivid characters in her memoir. Her travels on the river range from short excursions to the Saugerties Lighthouse to a days-long journey from Tivoli to Tarrytown and a circumnavigation of Manhattan Island, while in memory she ventures as far as the Indiana Dunes and the French Pyrenees. In a fluid, engaging voice, My Reach mixes the genres of memoir, outdoor adventure, natural and unnatural history. Rogers's interest in the flora and fauna of the river is as keen as her insight into the people who live and travel along the waterway. She integrates moments of description and environmental context with her own process of grieving the recent deaths of both parents. The result is a book that not only moves the reader but also informs and entertains.

Full Product Details

9780801450075

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Reviews

<p> In a fresh and unassuming voice, Susan Fox Rogers sets out to tell the reader what she learns as she comes to know the Hudson River through kayaking near her home in Tivoli, New York, and beyond. What she hadn't anticipated, however, and what she shared, ultimately, is the heartbreaking and profoundly moving manner in which the river teaches her, as she faces a series of sudden and devastating personal losses, the nature of her very self. -Boyer Rickel, author of Taboo

<p> In My Reach, Susan Fox Rogers shares her deep affection for the complex beauty of the Hudson, respecting both the natural and mechanical worlds that form the life of the river. Within the first two pages she sets the stage, appreciating the metallic song of the katydids even as she enjoys the ripeness of two-stroke engine exhaust. This is a lovely and honest portrait of a river whose natural resources have shaped the course of the nation, and buoyed so many lives through loves and losses just like those Rogers confronts in this moving memoir. Jessica DuLong, author of My River Chronicles

<p> Susan Fox Rogers captures many fascinating aspects of the Hudson River Valley, including its natural and environmental history, industry, famous individuals, early explorers, and native tribes. With Rogers as a guide, the reader follows her gaze, adopting her unique perspective as she ruminates about the local histories of towns along whose shores she paddles. . . . This is a rewarding and highly engaging memoir that Hudson Valley readers will no doubt want to share with their loved ones. Rogers' main message remains relevant: she reminds us of the therapeutic value of near-at-hand nature, the importance of companionship, and that we must all continue forth courageously. -Hudson River Valley Review

Author Information

Susan Fox Rogers is Visiting Associate Professor of Writing at Bard College. She is the editor of twelve books, including most recently Antarctica: Life on the Ice and Going Alone: Women's Adventures in the Wild.

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