A Million Fragile Bones by Connie May Fowler guides the reader, with love and compassion, into the environmental catastrophe caused by BP’s Deepwater Horizon oil spill.  The facts, chronology, and images are here in horrific detail, all made personal through Connie’s engagement with nature.  This balance between memoir and non-fiction enable a close attachment to the historical events, allowing us to witness firsthand the true horror and scope of this tragedy.

The early part of this book is memoir.  Connie shares glimpses of her childhood in a pointillist manner, such that we come to understand her deep and meaningful connection to her natural surroundings.  She lost her father at a young age, but remembers him as close to nature, and loving the sea and fishing.  When she is torn from her home as a child, she gains solace from written words. When alcoholism makes it hard for her mother to show affection, she finds unconditional love from her dog. When Connie sees birds, she sees freedom and strength and grace.  Ultimately she begins telling her stories and the memoir includes Oprah Winfrey discovering and producing for television her novel Before Women Had Wings.

Ultimately, Connie is seeking a home, and she finds one on Alligator Point, on the gulf coast of Florida.  She immerses us in the passion she has for the wildlife of her surroundings.  Every living being is sacred to her.  Even the snakes and spiders are welcome to share her home.  She studies the plants and birds and sea creatures sharing her world. In her free time, she works to protect the animals from land development by spreading the word and engaging with local politicians.

By the time we learn of the Deepwater Horizon’s explosion, we have shared Connie’s life and endeavors; we’ve become stakeholders.  We have come to love this place she calls home, after all we’ve seen through her eyes.  Suddenly what we begin seeing becomes tinted dark with dread.  Oil is pluming into the ocean.  BP executives and politicians are trying to cover up the disaster.  Toxic chemicals are dumped into the ocean to hide the oil and a mixture of airborne pollutants blowing in from the sea.  Connie’s health suffers.  After the polluted air come the dead and dying sea creatures.  Connie takes classes to become certified to save the living, scrub them of oil.  Her home has turned from paradise to hellscape.

A Million Fragile Bones is a compelling read.  Both the memoir and non-fiction tug at our heartstrings.  Even after having read about the oil spill and watched it unfold daily on television, there are many facts that have escaped our attention, swept under the rug by the industry and our leaders.  Here you learn the cold, hard truth.  The horror of what happened, and the damage from which the gulf (and the world beyond) has still not recovered.  And, living vicariously through Connie’s love of nature, everything becomes more beautiful, poignant, and tragic.

The world needs this book.