Temple Stream: A Rural Odyssey

by Bill Roorbach

I call the stream ours because our house is in its valley and a corner of our land touches the stream at a dramatic bend, and because my wife and our daughter (always in the company of our dogs) walk down to that bend every morning, every season. The stream is our point of contact with all the waters of the world.

Great blue herons, yellow birches, damselflies, and beavers are among the many runes by which Bill Roorbach discovers a universe of nature along the stream that runs by his home in Farmington, Maine. Populated by an oddball cast of characters to whom the generous-spirited Roorbach (aka “The Professor”) and his family might always be outsiders, these pages chronicle one man’s determination – sometimes with hilarious results – to follow his stream directly to its elusive source. Acclaimed essayist as well as award-winning author of fiction, Bill Roorbach brings his singular literary gifts to a book that is inspirational, funny, loving, and filled with the wonder of living side by side with the natural world.

Praise for Bill Roorbach “Roorbach falls, for me, into that small category of writers whose every book I must read, then reread.” —Jay Parini, author of The Apprentice Lover “Here is a narrator who makes you glad to be alive, giddy to be in his presence, grateful to love friends and family and dogs with generosity and abandon, to show tenderness and thus be saved by strangers.” —Melanie Rae Thon, author of First, Body

“Roorbach is a master at capturing and expressing joy.” — Hartford Courant

“Roorbach has a knack for tapping into deep undercurrents and bringing them to the surface with the least amount of fanfare or fuss.” — L.A. Weekly

Genres: Nonfiction, Nature, Travel, Memoir, Natural History

304 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2005

About the author

Bill Roorbach's newest novel is The Remedy For Love, coming October 2014 from Algonquin Books. Life Among Giants, also from Algonquin, is in development for a multi-year series at HBO, and won the 2014 Maine Literary Award in Fiction. Big Bend: Stories has just be re-released by Georgia in its Flannery O'Connor Award series. Temple Stream is soon to be re-released by Down East Books. Bill is also the author of the romantic memoir SUMMERS WITH JULIET, the novel THE SMALLEST COLOR, the essay collection INTO WOODS. The tenth anniversary edition of his craft book, WRITING LIFE STORIES, is used in writing programs around the world. His short fiction has been published in Harper's, The Atlantic Monthly, Playboy, and dozens of other magazines, journals, and websites, and has been featured on NPR's Selected Shorts, and won an O. Henry Prize. He lives in western Maine where he writes full time.

For more information about Bill Roorbach, see www.billroorbach.com, www.lifeamonggiantsthebook.com, and be sure to enjoy his blog and videos at www.billanddavescocktailhour.com. Follow him on Twitter: @​billroorbach.

Reviews

[Kristen Case · Rating 5 out of 5]

I read this book just after we learned we were morning to Maine, but before I knew that we would live within earshot of the Temple Stream. I taught it in my environmental literature class as an example of what happens to "environmental writing" when people are included in the environment. Beautiful, funny, clear-sighted, dark enough to be real. Dead-on about Temple.

[Beth · Rating 4 out of 5]

A vivid yet gentle exploration of the stream in this man's "backyard." Loved the inclusion of the dogs, the people his memories of people and places in his past. Good amount of science. Lots of heart and genuine love of place. I really enjoyed his ability to express that joy of just being and being in a place. A lovely book.

[Darcee · Rating 4 out of 5]

An enjoyable memoir of the author's quest and adventure in tracing the Temple Stream in Maine from the streams joining to the next waterway, all the way back to it's mountain source. The reader becomes emersed in the flora and fauna discoveries, as well as the various characters weaving in and out of the story. The author eventually takes permanent residence in the "summer" cabin along the stream with his family, giving in to the call of the nature surrounding him.

[Kenrick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I truly wish I could give this book three-and-a-half stars, but the rating system here forces me to choose between three and four. By the time you're reading this, I may well have caved and popped it up to four. Or flopped back to three.

At any rate, I enjoyed this book. I deeply enjoyed it, but was not deeply moved by it. The author is undoubtedly skilled as a writer, and his varied accounts of life in Maine are all interesting, enjoyable, amusing, emotive. But reaching the end, putting the book down, I did not feel the ineffable sense of having been changed that accompanies a truly great book.

Recommended, and heartily, but not required reading.

Aw, hell, let's give it four!

[Anna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Temple Stream feels like a beautiful and poetic love letter to the Maine woods, flora, waters and small towns as well as to Roorbach's wife (Juliet) and daughter (Elysia). I just adored it. My favourite passages related to going into the woods with his friend Nancy and identifying plants. My hiking buddies do this all the time (I don't seem to retain any of it) and I recognize Nancy's enthusiasm in them. It is such a lovely book that it really reminded me that I must read more Roorbach, even though I become less of a fiction reader every day. I read Temple Stream on the train to and from New York City - a bit of a jarring difference between the two environments!

[Craig · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a good book. 3.5 stars, today, tomorrow maybe 4.0. A fascinatingly detailed description of birds, flowers, beavers, the water cycle, human history, and of course the stream itself- really good stuff. The pace is, relaxed, or perhaps laconic. Don't expect a thrill a minute. But it is well done, with story lines to just hold it together and when you are done you have a sense, just a sense, of what the author is experiencing along the Temple Stream. Topped off with a poem, the poem, about the stream. Slow down and read to get the most of this one.

[Mal Conner · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really good. This is my first Roorbach book. I enjoyed his voice and his observations, not only of the nature around him but of his friends and acquaintances. Being from Downeast Maine, I can truthfully say none of it was too far-fetched!

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A life changing read - the only thing I didn't like about it was when I finished . Temple Stream is about what it means to be a person as reflected in a stream, a place and its place in the author's life.

[Luann Yetter · Rating 4 out of 5]

Roorbach combines the personal with the informative in a seamless way.

[Karen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I liked the book, mostly I think because I am familiar with the area. Good descriptions throughout, easy read

[Jamie Dacyczyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

An interesting and pleasant memoir-of-sorts centered around a stream near the author's home. Took me a while to read this short book because I basically had the ebook on my phone to read here and there while I waited for appointments and such. But, since there was no specific plot, my sporadic reading felt right for the story. Chapters detailing the actual landscape of the stream are interspersed with passages about the colorful people that the author met while exploring the stream. Although I suspect that a certain amount of exaggeration flavored some of the details, I still found the interactions with Earl amusing (and recognizable, even if I've never met "Earl" I've certainly met Mainers exactly like him). I also really enjoyed the chapter about trying to locate the very source of the stream, following it to the very end. It's something I've always wanted to do with my favorite waterways.

A worthwhile read, as meandering and playful as the title stream.

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

Probably because I live just over the hill from Temple Stream and I recognized some of the people in this book, I loved the setting and the writing. Bill Roorbach writes like a naturalist with great descriptions of the steam, terrain, wildlife - especially beavers-, trees, plants, and man's affect on all these things. I really enjoyed his descriptions of his tramps through the woods as he piece by piece moves upstream to the very beginnings of Temple stream. It is just a trickle, but when it decides these days to flood (more and more often) in Farmington, it is quite a scene. Also loved his venture into releasing 12 messages in bottles into the stream. The furthest one he reported on by the end of the book was at Popham beach...20 years ago.

[Lindsey Horowitz · Rating 4 out of 5]

This book grew on me as I read. At first, I found it slow going and vocabulary-dense. I wasn’t really connecting with it, even though I am quite familiar with the place depicted (Farmington, ME). As I read, I found myself reading bigger and bigger chunks and feeling more compelled by the meditation on place.
This is a book for you if you love setting. If you, like me, are more of a plot person, it may not be for you, though I did find the part about the baby and whether she would ever get a name to be very interesting!

[Tebel Shaw · Rating 3 out of 5]

Tolerated his quoting Thoreau, but quit on page 44 where he praises the practice of beaver trapping. Nevertheless, a gifted writer who introduced me to "omphaloskepsis," the fine art of "naval gazing."

[Alison · Rating 4 out of 5]

Superb lovely little book about a man's meanderings out and about, up and down a hometown stream

[emma · Rating 3 out of 5]

A love letter to Temple Stream. Passionate writing that follows the flow of a river. Don't come looking for a plot but rather a window into Maine.

[Tony Barlow · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really enjoyed this one. It had me rolling in laughter at times with some of the interactions. Also loved some of the naturalist stuff that was shared. Well written book.

[Lindsey · Rating 1 out of 5]

I had to read this book for a class. The writing is excellent and the author has a lot of passion for his subject. Too bad I just couldn't get into it. There are huge lapses where I don't even remember what happens. This is the type of book where you need the right kind of audience for it - anyone who loves the the study of the outdoors set in a nonfiction prose. I'm more of fiction kinda gal who doesn't like a whole bunch of explanation, and likes the focus of the story to be on the people who push the action along.

[Alex Luhtjarv · Rating 2 out of 5]

It was alright, but just alright. I was waiting for the plot to gel more and become more of a unified, driven plot that went somewhere, but that never materialized. The loosely connected stories were enjoyable enough, especially the connection to dying towns and the best character in the book, Earl, but the endless random lists of flora and fauna took any excitement right out of this book. It was alright.

[Telyn · Rating 4 out of 5]

Bill Roorbach chronicles his exploration of the stream that runs past his home in rural Maine in this quirky and slightly melancholy autobiographical journey. The detailed descriptions of plants, animals, and the seasons are vivid and interesting, accounts of the human inhabitants somewhat less so.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

Roorbach has taken me on a journey of exploration with-in my own backyard. He explores the Temple Stream as I once did my own wooded home, and nearby brooke. With curiosity, and excitement at each small discovery.

[Cupsuptic · Rating 2 out of 5]

Interesting story (especially for me, being familiar with the region he describes), but the prose is heady and repetitive. Worth the read, but go in with low expectations.