John Lane has scaled a granite dome in the Suriname rain forest and waded pastcottonmouths in the heart of a Florida cypress swamp. He has shadowedcrocodiles in... » 

John Lane has scaled a granite dome in the Suriname rain forest and waded pastcottonmouths in the heart of a Florida cypress swamp. He has shadowedcrocodiles in a Yucatan mangrove thicket and paddled the rapids of NorthCarolinas Tuckaseegee River in search of a drowned kayaker. Waist Deep inBlack Water offers a collection of Lanes own writings that range fromwilderness exploration to conservation issues to explorations of familyhistory in Spartanburg South Carolina.Lanes trek to the Medicine Wheel National Historic Landmark in Wyoming becomesan occasion to draw connections between religion sexuality and mountain lore.A hike into Kentuckys Red River Gorge prompts a meditation on the words andspirit of Wendell Berry who helped prevent the gorge from being dammed. Someof Lanes writings are set closer to home where the South Carolina hills meetthe Blue Ridge. In Something Rare as a DwarfFlowered Heartleaf Lanerecounts his campaign to stop the development of a woodland area withinSpartanburgs city limits. Family issues also surface as in ConfluencePacolet River. Here Lane kayaks through country where his family has lived forgenerations as he reckons the distances between himself and his farmingmillworking forebears.Something is always at stake wherever Lane takes us a stand of oldgrowthtrees a primate population a friendship a soul. Lane bestows lovingattention on the places and people he visits in this collection and in theprocess goes beyond the traditional concerns of nature and travel writing.Readers of Waist Deep in Black Water will find a wise friend and a faithfulguide in John Lane. «