More Than Meets the Eye: Exploring Nature and Loss on the Coast of Maine

by Margie Patlak

Winner of the American Society of Journalists and Authors Award in the memoir/autobiography category!



For award-winning science writer Margie Patlak, exploring the unique nature of the Maine coast opens a door to deeper ties and insights. Watching a striped monarch caterpillar transform into a chartreuse pendant dabbed with gold, she realizes the limits of life and what is passed between generations. Tides show how fleeting time is, and clouds and weather reveal greater forces that take away all illusions of control. She also explores the continental collisions that thrust up and fractured Maine’s mountains; digs into the latest scientific thinking on how animals navigate; and exults in the dizzy dance of plankton under the microscope. Even moose, fox, and fishers reveal more than meets the eye.These facets of the natural world speak a hidden language Patlak translates with her scientific knowledge and reflection. Nature begins to speak about the nature of life.

Genres: Nature

223 pages, Kindle Edition

Published May 1, 2021

About the author

Margie Patlak is an award-winning science and nature writer, memoirist, and photographer. Her memoir More Than Meets the Eye: Exploring Nature and Loss on the Coast of Maine was given the "Outstanding Book" award by the American Society for Journalists and Authors in 2022. Her photobook Wild and Wondrous: Nature's Artistry on the Coast of Maine, was published in July of 2023. Her nonfiction book Insect Safari: Exploring the Wondrous World of Everyday Bugs was published by Workman/Hachette in June of 2026. She has degrees in Botany and Environmental Studies and divides her time between Philadelphia, Pennsylvania and Corea, Maine.

Reviews

[Terry]

I have spent hours walking the shore of Lake Michigan. It is the place I go to think, to grieve, to celebrate the bounty and beauty nature gives with such abandon and the place I say aloud the name of my son, who has been gone from me now almost 8 years. While this is my home shore, I have also walked along the ocean in Maine and California, in Canada and Panama and other coasts where the sound of waves and the endless horizon bring me to inner peace and balance. So when I came across Margie Patlak’s book More Than Meets The Eye, Exploring Nature and Loss on the Coast of Maine I couldn’t wait to sit down with a cup of tea and begin my journey with her. The book did not disappoint. In fact, I have savored her nature-based insights on grieving and carried her words with me to think about as I walk my own shore of mourning. She also clearly knows her science and I appreciated the way she opened such interesting facets of nature and connected them to my inner dialogue. I highly recommend this book.

[Vicki Rea]

I first became familiar with Margie Patlak’s work through environmental and medical articles in the newspaper and essays on her website. Her writing captivated me and so I was thrilled when she published her book, More Than Meets The Eye. In this book she has compiled years of her experience in scientific analysis, knowledgeable references, observation of nature, and lifelong relationships all resulting in universal expressions of love and loss. She expertly manages to intertwine and concurrently juxtapose the magic and fragility of changing nature with its enduring permanence and, at times, brutal reality. Similarly she weaves together the thread of poignant experiences of the life and death of family members, particularly, her mother and older brother. All of this beautiful narrative is set in a spot of Maine, Schoodic Peninsula, sacred to many of us who live and travel there. If you do not know this geographic area, as you read, you will be transported to a very special place that Margie has captured in her writing.

Most valuable to me, this book teaches the process of mindfulness for our physical and spiritual surroundings and our relationships both present and memorialized.

[Nicolas Levy]

This is a fantastic book to savour on nature, loss, and meaning. Margie Patlak explores what it means to live with and learn from nature in a series of about 20 essays, providing different glimpses into her Maine home through all four seasons. The first section of the book reminds us what it's like to fully engage in nature with our five senses - why it's important to name what we see (something I've started doing since reading the book), and the discoveries of an un-silent night of the remote Schoodic Peninsula.

The second part of the book seeks to make meaning from nature in the face of loss: at the time of writing, the author had lost her parents and brother. There are several incredible chapters here that will forever change how I understand nature, including a chapter on clouds and another on rocks - two meaningful parts of the world that I hadn't even realized I was neglecting. One of my favourite chapters is on the migration of butterflies; some species take four generations to complete a single migration trip! This begs the question of how progeny know to continue the cross-continental trip, and perhaps the answer isn't too different from how humans transmit learning across the generations.

In brief, this is a beautifully-written and incredibly meaningful book, in many of the same ways as Braiding Sweetgrass (one of my other favourite books). For those who are from or have spent time in Maine, I imagine the book will be extra meaningful and bring back sweet memories of the place. But even for those of us less familiar with that corner of the world, Patlak's writing invites us in and entices us to fully immerse in nature, both in our imaginations and in our daily lives.

[Gina T]

I was interested in reading this memoir because of the Maine location. I had visited Maine once many years ago. The state made such a positive impression, that I wanted to move there and spent months afterwards looking at houses online, amazed at the 'bargains' to be found right on the water. The timing wasn't right and I never did buy a home but like to make literary trips to Maine when I can.

On our visit, we drove along the Maine coast as far east as the Schoodic Peninsula, where the author bought a home. One especially memorable afternoon, my daughter and I walked along the beach as the fog moved in, gently merging us and the beach and the water into a quicksilver whole. I felt a book about the Maine coast needed to at least mention fog. This memoir does, in chapter 7 and the author learned to appreciate the fog as much as I do.

"More Than Meets the Eye" is a lovely meditation on nature. The book interweaves the author's life experiences with naturalistic descriptions of sea, sky, water and animals (Moose sex!) and more. Her love and appreciation of nature is obvious and infectious. I think you'll look at the world differently after reading Margie Patlak's memoir. I know I'll pay more attention to the details around me next time I find myself surrounded by nature.

[R.J. Heller]

This new collection of essays touches personal loss in a unique way. Rather than deal with it by only embracing the past through personal memories, both tenses —past and present— are equals in the effort to make sense of it all. Add to it a natural world that perpetually surrounds life, loss becomes tolerable, understandable and perhaps even beautiful.
To do this author Margie Patlak in her new book, More Than Meets the Eye, says one must let their sense of wonder look into the soul of a place, allow its flora, fauna and of course the sea to open up, letting us truly see and, in return, heal.
The award-winning writer takes us on her journey of seeing the natural world on the coast of Maine as she deals with personal loss. She does this through her meticulous layered and artful approach that is her writing and sprinkles it with golden nuggets of wonder both from a science-based perspective and a very real human perspective.

For complete review go to < https://rjheller.com/2023/04/16/more-...

[Daniel Bailey]

Nature in the form of ants and spiders, garter snakes and juncos slipped into the back ranks of my thoughts as I exited childhood. Though a junior high science teacher warned us “There are people who never know what tree they’re looking at, what bird they’re hearing,” I became one of them.
This book put the fresh night breeze on my eager skin (kayaking at night under stars and over phospheresence, imagine!). It replaced my broken binoculars. It immersed me in flowers and foxes and fishers.
Most of all it reminded me that I'm not alone. I live in a pageant with dragonflies.

[Eileen Cunniffe]

Margie Patlak offers deep insights into both the natural world and human nature in this moving collection of essays. Science writing becomes a lens for examining personal experiences of love and loss, as well as exploring—sometimes at literally a microscopic level—a quiet corner of Maine. The book springs from a place of loss; however, as the author moves back and forth in time, she makes peace with her family’s history. Although this book is not at all about the pandemic, to me it feels like a kind of antidote for this time, with thoughtful reflections about grief, isolation, and healing.

[Kathryn Lord]

It took me several sittings to read Margie Patlak’s “More Than Meets the Eye,” and that was because it was so good. I’m a native Mainer who lived until recently on an island not far from where Margie writes from in mid-coast Maine. Now I am a full time Floridian. Margie’s book stirred such homesickness that I could hardly stand it. She’s a keen observer and a wonderful writer. Every chapter connected me to exquisite places and treasured memories. If you know Maine or would like to, Margie paints word pictures that will take you there.

[Celeste]

I loved this book and could hardly put it down. The author's descriptions were exquisite at times. Her observations of nature brought made me feel as if I was right there with her. Her insights as she processed her grief over the passing of beloved family members were deep and poignant as her times in nature brought her perspective and healing.Ms. Patlak is a wise woman and a very knowledgeable naturalist. This is a very engaging read.

[Irene Drago]

Patlak's MORE THAN MEETS THE EYE is a poetic memoir in prose that explores the consoling power of the natural world, especially coastal Maine. I found her words to be beautiful and comforting. Though everyone walks through grief differently, Patlak shows us a possible path through the woods with foxes and porcupines, toward the water with herons and cormorants, and allows us to swim in the deep blue sea. She revives our spirit with words.

[Candi]

I incredibly loved this book, this made me look at nature and the world differently. All the imagery and observations written in the book made me feel like I was there in the same place. More Than Meets The Eye was an amazing read and I'm glad I got to read it.

[Kathy]

Wonderfully written book with special meaning. Experiencing terrible loss and living in coastal Maine during the summer months, Margie Patlak weaves together expansive topics such as science, the stars, our animal friends on land and in the sea with how we cope with loss.