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How Far the Light Reaches: A Life in Ten Sea Creatures
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About This Book
A queer, mixed race writer working in a largely white, male field, science and conservation journalist Sabrina Imbler has always been drawn to the mystery of life in the sea, and particularly to creatures living in hostile or remote environments. Each essay in their debut collection profiles one such creature: the mother octopus who starves herself while watching over her eggs, the Chinese sturgeon whose migration route has been decimated by pollution and dams, the bizarre Bobbitt worm (named after Lorena), and other uncanny creatures lurking in the deep ocean, far below where the light reaches. Imbler discovers that some of the most radical models of family, community, and care can be found in the sea, from gelatinous chains that are both individual organisms and colonies of clones to deep-sea crabs that have no need for the sun, nourished instead by the chemicals and heat throbbing from the core of the Earth. Exploring themes of adaptation, survival, sexuality, and care, and weaving the wonders of marine biology with stories of their own family, relationships, and coming of age, How Far the Light Reaches is a book that invites us to envision wilder, grander, and more abundant possibilities for the way we live.
Reviews
"I am here to vouch that all the fuss was totally justified ..."
"How Far the Light Reaches meditates radiantly on the ragged ways we adapt to the world around us, probing the lives of marine animals for strategies for our own survival."
"Weaving together the oceanic and the human in thought-provoking reflections on queerness, race, family, love and identity along the way ..."
"In a book that is much more than an account of deep-sea creatures, journalist Imbler compellingly examines the parallels between the lives and priorities of people and aquatic animals."
"This intimate deep dive will leave readers eager to see where Imbler goes next."
"I found both solace and hope in Imbler's ability to portray a world so foreign it's barely legible to humans, and to bring forth the myriad ways of being that we might draw on to imagine our way forward through the depths."
"Imbler does a good job of building both the crabs' and the clubgoers' stories with precise and patient detail, allowing the reader to notice parallels without having to learn some kind of lesson."
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