The Nature of Home

For Lisa Knopp, homesickness is a literal sickness. During a lengthy sojourn away from the Nebraska prairie she fell ill, and only when she decided to return home did she recover. Homesickness is the triggering event for this memoir, and its subject is nothing less than what it means to feel at home. Knopp writes masterfully about subjects as seemingly far ranging as place, nature conservation, family, literary foremothers, and the values and beliefs that sustain the individual within an impersonal world. She is passionate about her subject whether it be an endangered beetle in the salt marshes near Lincoln, Nebraska, a forgotten Nebraska inventor, or the roots of Arbor Day as a misguided attempt to "correct" a perceived lack in the Great Plains landscape as seen from the sensibilities of eastern settlers. Here is a writer who has read widely and judiciously, and for whom everything resonates within the intricately structured definition of home. Lisa Knopp is on the faculty of the Master of Fine Arts Program in Creative Nonfiction at Goucher College and lives in Lincoln, Nebraska. She is the author of Flight Dreams: A Life in the Midwestern Landscape and Field of Vision.