Jill Sisson Quinn

Deranged: Finding a Sense of Place in the Landscape and in the Lifespan Jill Sisson Quinn

Deranged links ecological explorations with moments of individual maturation in nineteen essays that braid natural history and memoir. On one level, Deranged investigates salient environmental topics such as Colony Collapse Disorder, forest fragmentation, the near-extinction of Britain's Large Blue Butterfly, altruism, the evolution of walking in early humans, and the threat of another mass extinction. But interwoven is a woman's coming-of-age, an exploration of the process of accepting childlessness while at the same time developing a sense of place in the Midwest. Deranged explores the mutability of where we believe we belong, and who we believe we are. "Deranged is beautifully conceived and beautifully written." - Lisa Knopp, author of Interior Places "Quinn brilliantly combines scientific fact with personal experience, elevating both through the use of vivid imagery and lyrical language. The metamorphosis of maturation becomes something both strange and familiar as Quinn describes moments of displacement-that limbo of awareness that exists at the boundaries of change." - Kim Barnes, author of In The Wilderness: Coming of Age in Unknown Country