Bland Simpson regales us with new tales of coastal North Carolina's
"water-loving land," revealing how its creeks, streams, and rivers
shape the region's geography as well as its culture. Drawing on
deep family ties and coastal travels, Simpson and wife and
collaborator Ann Cary Simpson tell the stories of those who have
lived and worked in this country, chronicling both a distinct
environment and a way of life. Whether rhapsodizing about learning
to sail on the Pasquotank River or eating oysters on Ocracoke, he
introduces readers to the people and communities along the watery
web of myriad "little rivers" that define North Carolina's sound
country as it meets the Atlantic.
With nearly sixty of Ann Simpson's photographs,
Little
Rivers joins the Simpsons' two previous works,
Into the
Sound Country and
The Inner Islands, in offering a rich
narrative and visual document of eastern North Carolina's
particular beauty. Urging readers to take note of the poetry in
"every rivulet and rill, every creek, crick, branch, run, stream,
prong, fork, river, pocosin, swamp, basin, estuary, cove, bay, and
sound," the Simpsons show how the coastal plain's river systems are
in many ways the region's heart and soul.