The Magic Eye

The Magic Eye: A Story of Saving a Life and a Place in the Age of Anxiety is a memoir on journeying through a rare and deadly eye cancer in the middle of trying to save a fifth-generation Kansas farm. In this tender, humorous, poetic, wry, and courageous story, Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg writes what author Harriet Lerner called "....a luminous, poetic meditation on survival, community, and resilience. With tenderness and humor, her memoir speaks to the fierce beauty of holding on to life, to land, and to hope when the odds seem insurmountable. A deeply human story, this book is a testament to courage and the power of place that will stay with you long after you turn the final page."

"In The Magic Eye, Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg transforms the harrowing reality of a rare cancer diagnosis and the urgent fight to save a beloved fifth-generation farm into a luminous, poetic meditation on survival, community, and resilience. With tenderness and humor, her memoir speaks to the fierce beauty of holding on to life, to land, and to hope when the odds seem insurmountable. A deeply human story, this book is a testament to courage and the power of place that will stay with you long after you turn the final page." Harriet Lerner, Ph.D. author of The Dance of Anger and Why Won't You Apologize?

"No endorsement can do justice to this vivid, lyric, wise, wry, compassionate, profoundly spiritual memoir of passage through some severe life trials. The Magic Eye is a microcosmic epic of unvaunting human triumph. Bursting with life in its myriad forms, this is a book to love and to share." Stephanie Mills, author of In Service of the Wild and Epicurean Simplicity

"In this outstanding, beautifully written memoir, celebrated poet Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg tells two interweaving stories of redemption, healing, and courage, contrasting the struggle to save her life- following a diagnosis of eye cancer-with the fight to preserve her husband's ancestral land in Kansas. It's a riveting tale that will lift your heart and deepen your courage. I loved it." Mark Matousek, author of Lessons From an American Stoic: How Emerson Can Change Your Life

"We're really in a struggle right now all over the planet, and we need stories like The Magic Eye to make us more attentive and mindful in asking how we place ourselves in right relations with all of creation. Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg's memoir embodies how we can shift our lens-finding new ways to see that we don't live among resources, we live among relatives. This memoir reminds us how, if we care for the land, it cares for us. It also shows us how much our own healing is rooted in our healing of the earth." Daniel Wildcat, author of On Indigenuity: Learning the Lessons of Mother Earth