Peninsula: Essays and Memoirs from Michigan

Peninsula is a collection of thirty-seven contemporary personal essays and memoirs about Michigan. In that regard, it is a regional anthology-a multi-voiced, multi-faceted evocation of place-and yet, each piece stands apart as a personal recollection, sometimes funny, sometimes moving. What inevitably ties these essays together is the deep association the writers have with Michigan. Several, like Jim Harrison, Kathleen Stocking, and Thomas Lynch, live there; others, like Max Apple, Toi Derricotte, and Philip Levine, were born there and left; and some like Jack Driscoll, Linda Nemec Foster, and Lev Raphael, moved to Michigan from other places.

Clearly though, each contributor has a strong connection to the geography and landscape of the region. The selections are wide-ranging and diverse. There are pieces that look out on nature and the outdoors, evoking images of Leelanau County and the Upper Peninsula; there are essays and memoirs about living in Detroit, Grand Rapids, and Lansing; there are expatriate pieces, and there are essays and memoirs that mine memory and imagination and reflect the writer’s inner landscape and geography.

Peninsula gives a sense of the variety, flavour, and distinctiveness of Michigan’s character as well as exploring the varying styles and unique personal histories of each contributing writer.