Spirit Things

By: Lara Messersmith-Glavin, Roger Peet - illustrator

Narrated by: Lara Messersmith-Glavin

Length: 5 hrs and 32 mins

Publisher's summary

A collection of essays that evoke an adventurous spirit and the craving for myth, Spirit Things examines the hidden meanings of objects found on a fishing boat, as seen through the eyes of a child. Author Lara Messersmith-Glavin blends memoir, mythology, and science as she relates the uniqueness and flavor of the Alaskan experience through her memories of growing up fishing in the commercial salmon industry off Kodiak Island.

“Spirit things” are those mundane objects that offer new insights into the world on closer consideration—fishing nets, a favorite knife, and the bioluminescent gleam of seawater in a twilight that never truly grows dark. Spirit Things recounts stories of fishing, family, synesthesia, storytelling, gender, violence, and meaning. Each essay takes an object and follows it through histories: personal, material, and scientific, drawing together the delicate lines that link things through their making and use, their genesis and evolution, and the ways they gain significance in an individual’s life.

A contemplative take on everything from childcare to neurodivergence, comfort foods to outlaws, Spirit Things uses experiences from the human world and locates them on the edges of nature. Contact with wilderness, with wildness, be it twenty-foot seas in the ocean off Alaska’s coast or chairs flying through windows of a Kodiak bar, provides an entry point for meditations on the ways in which patterns, magic, and wonder overlap.

©2022 Lara Messersmith-Glavin (P)2023 University of Alaska Press

Critic reviews

“Many fishing memoirs are filled with high seas drama, but Messersmith-Glavin focuses instead on what Blake called the 'luminous details' as revealed in the 'spirit things' she chooses to carry her story, objects as seemingly mundane as a glove and as complex as a wave. Spirit Things will appeal to anyone who’s fallen hard for Alaska and wants to be reminded what they love—and miss—about wilderness, fishing, and those who are drawn to the far North.”
—Holly J. Hughes, author of Hold Fast, Passings, and Sailing by Ravens

“Lara Messersmith-Glavin’s essays are simultaneously thrilling and insightful as she solemnizes the objects from her youth on an Alaskan fishing boat. She masterfully illuminates the sacred in nets and winches, in salmon, skiffs and waves in this beautifully crafted collection. I was awe struck.” —Liz Prato, author of Volcanoes, Palm Trees, and Privilege: Essays on Hawai’i

"Spirit Things takes readers into the depths of a life growing up on the ocean among deckhands and danger on an Alaskan commercial fishing vessel. With a framework of “spirit things”—a buoy, a winch, salmon and more, an ever-shifting life is pursed up with narratives that shape an unusual upbringing. Lara Messersmith-Glavin is indeed a child of the sea!" —Vivian Faith Prescott, author of Old Woman with Berries in Her Lap

Luminous Things

Spirit Things is a beautiful exploration of the search for self, history, and the story of totemic meaning. The author’s reading is deeply felt, each individual essay achieves a luminous quality through Messersmith-Glavin’s performance. A magnificent book, I enjoyed it tremendously.

Love this story life of a true fisherwoman

I first met the author in 1991 and I learned things in this book I didn't realize but loved every second. if you have ever wondered what Alaska fishing is like from a human perspective this book really sets the bar.