Keith Taylor's Reviews > The Accidental Reef and Other Ecological Odysseys in the Great Lakes

Many of the books on the Lakes and the creatures in them try to write science simply enough that the lay person can understand it. The authors don't think very much about the art of their words. This book marries the two concerns as well as any I know. Here are a few words I wrote when I saw the book in manuscript:

Heasley combines difficult science (amply documented), reportage, historical and literary sensibilities with a crystalline style that is not afraid to confront state of the art research with the occasional lyrical flourish, and even sometimes with a bit of humor. She moves through scientific and imaginative literature to end with important philosophical issues about our relationships with the Great Lakes. All of this has resulted in a unique book, one of the most readable regional environmental books I have encountered, and one that gives me important information.

She has rather brilliantly used the artificial and accidental reef of her title to frame the essays in the book. Here we have a by-product of industrialism becoming almost a natural feature that provides breeding grounds for the Lake Sturgeon, a fish we once thought on the edge of extinction. In the process Heasley moves through the history of the region, the environmental history, and the biology of the sturgeon. She moves out into the larger issues confronting the Great Lakes and finds other examples around the whole region to illustrate her discussions of water protection.