E. Fred Carlisle

  Fred Carlisle" new book, "The Lake Effect : A Lake Michigqn Mosaic,","is grounded in the author’s personal

experiences but moves to wider considerations that include theaesthetic, emotional, historic, economic, and social effects of

Lake Michigan.

  Thee book captures the lake’s mesmerizing beauty in summer and winter. It also examines the way Lake Michigan sustains the

economies and societies of every place along its shores. It speaks of the ways human intervention and carelessness have polluted, damaged, and degraded the lake. The book also describes the lake’s power—in both water and ice forms—to drown swimmers, wreck ships, destroy beaches, and consume houses.

  "The Lake Effect "explores as well the functions and power of water broadly. Water can be magical and make us healthier,

happier, and more peaceful. It can also be an adversary that damages and destroys. Water is equally a comfort and a threat: a

mosaic of multiplicity and contradiction.

"This book reads like an exquisite essay, but feels like a love letter to water"-Anne-Marie Oomen.

Fred Carlisle has been writing about identity and place for years. He is the author of four previous books—two memoirs, and studies of Walt Whitman and of Loren Eiseley. A former provost at Virginia Tech, he grew up in Ohio, enjoyed a long academic career, lived for a decade in the rural Virginia mountains, and now divides his time between Virginia and South Florida.