“In thin oils she depicted clumsy beaches and clouds. Their foregrounds and middle grounds showed jetsam and wrack, stained waves, brown bottles, steamer shells, broken china, waxed paper, church keys, foil, nails sticking through in lumber, clamshells, tires, purses, shoes – only two or three objects on each canvas. With a sable brush she graphed each torn string of a crab trap against dirt pink sky. Color was local. It allowed an ocean like red marcelled hair. Everything was littoral. Sandpipers pecked child footprints in mud. Storm sea like a ripsaw blade, and clouds in a mumble nearing. She would no more scumble a cloud than kill a child.”  — Annie Dillard, The Maytrees

How have I lived without this novel? I’ve been only part human, mostly a bog of strewn organs, chuckleheading my way through wastelands of half-dead language. But now I’m feasting — plucking Dillard’s delicious sentences and eating them for breakfast and dinner – or, rather, chewing on them, running my tongue over them, clicking them against my teeth, tucking the ones I like best in my cheeks for later rechewing, the way beautiful Sairy did as a toddler with apple pulp and cheese.

I’ve used Dillard’s essays for many years in my workshops on nature writing and writing about place. Now I can add this beautiful short novel to the list of books I most recommend.

It makes me ravenous. Think I’ll run outside and eat the world.

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