Synopses & Reviews
Coast: the edge of land, or conversely the edge of sea. Range: a measure between limits, or the scope or territory of a thing. Coast Range, the debut collection of essays from writer Nick Neely, meticulously and thoughtfully dwells on these intersections and much more. The book’s title refers to the region in which these essays are set: the California and Oregon Coast ranges. In deeply moving prose equal parts exhilarating and pensive, each essay explores an iconic organism (a few geologic), so that, on the whole, the collection becomes a curiosity cabinet that freshly contains this pacific Northwest landscape.
But "Coast Range" also alludes to the playful range of forms Neely employs. Just as forest gives way to bluff and ocean, here narrative journalism joins memoir and lyric essay. These associative and sensuous pieces are further entwined by the theme of "collecting" itself — beginning with a mediation on the impulse to gather beach agates, a semiprecious stone. Another essay follows the journey of salmon from their "collection" at a hatchery through a casino kitchen to a tribal coming-of-age ceremony; a third is a flitting exploration of hummingbirds. Neely documents, in vivid detail, his six-month stretch of living off the grid along the Rogue River, which ignited his healthy obsession with Oregon. In Coast Range, Neely fashions a kaleidoscopic group of essays, of which the overarching curiosity is the transient, but finally transcendent, nature of the world we live in.
Review
"I don’t know if "God is in the detail," as the saying goes, but I think much of nature is. Nick Neely’s Coast Range is an erudite, eloquent demonstration of that, from the vividly evoked details of ancient mollusks scraping their way into rocks to those of even more ancient fungi lacing themselves into tree roots. And it deftly connects "the detail" in unexpected ways: our appetite for mushrooms and the origins of our languages; Anna’s hummingbirds and modern history. Neely’s vigilant, wry commentaries on his native patch of the west coast are not only in the tradition of Thoreau’s Walden but in an older and wider one that he shares with Thoreau: what Thoreau calls "the great-dragon Tree" of mythic vision that is associated with Homer and Sophocles but also lives in Aristotle, Herodotus, Pliny, and other classical naturalists." David Wallace, author of Mountains and Marshes and The Untamed Garden
Review
"Welcome a strong new voice for the silver beaches, pine forests, and shining rivers of the Pacific Northwest. Like the agates in his pockets, Nick Neely’s essays are highly polished – translucent, but shot through with hard veins of natural science. Imagine Wallace Stegner in conversation with Ed Ricketts, when they are both young and still astonished. Then you can begin to understand the creativity, the power, the beauty, and the fun of Coast Range." Kathleen Dean Moore, author of Great Tide Rising
Review
"Neely’s fascination with a huge swath of the Pacific Northwest coastal range is evident in this quiet essay collection that focuses on small details described in carefully studied prose....This is the sort of introspective writing that will appeal strongly to readers seeking to gain a deeper appreciation of their environment, and those with curiosity about or longing for the region he knows so well. Neely clearly spent a lot of time watching and listening, both to the people and animals that call the area home, and his observations have real staying power." Booklist
Review
"Finely tuned essays that vary intriguingly in form and tone...Neely capably explores the complexity of his subjects with polish and finesse, looking carefully and thinking deeply." Kirkus Reviews (Starred Review)
About the Author
Nick Neely grew up in Portola Valley, California, where he spent his youth roaming the oak, chaparral, and redwoods of the Santa Cruz Mountains. His essays, articles, and poems are published or forthcoming in Kenyon Review, The Threepenny Review, The Georgia Review, The Southern Review, The Missouri Review, Harvard Review, FIELD, Ninth Letter, Ecotone, River Teeth, Orion, and Mother Jones. He lives in Hailey, Idaho, with his wife, the painter Sarah Bird.