Activist Ray explores southern Georgia's Pinhook Swamp, a vital watershed that links the Okefenokee and the Osceola National Forest. She lives with the swamp, tastes it, talks with its people, and finds the swamp is the stuff of real life, with that real life in need of care. She keeps her narratives small and her insights within large, addressing the need for wilderness in our environment and in ourselves, the need for stunning beauty in the ordinary, and the need for healing in a fragmented age. She describes the animals who make the swamp their home and those who make it their highway, the people who cull a gentle living from it those who dishearten it, and those who are trying to save it. She creates a distinct non-fiction through her episodic, novelistic approach, creating a clear image of a place and those who love it. Annotation ©2004 Book News, Inc., Portland, OR (booknews.com)