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A Coastline Is an Immeasurable Thing: A Memoir Across Three Continents
*PEOPLE
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Best Nonfiction Books of the Year *"GOOD MORNING AMERICA" Holiday Gift Pick *POETS & WRITERS
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A poetic coming-of-age memoir that probes the legacies and myths of family, race, and religion—from Nigeria to England to America
Mary-Alice Daniel's family moved from West Africa to England when she was a very young girl, leaving behind the vivid culture of her native land in the Nigerian savanna. They arrived to a blanched, cold world of prim suburbs and unfamiliar customs. So began her family's series of travels across three continents in search of places of belonging.
A Coastline Is an Immeasurable Thing ventures through the physical and mythical landscapes of Daniel's upbringing. Against the backdrop of a migratory adolescence, she reckons with race, religious conflict, culture clash, and a multiplicity of possible identities. Daniel lays bare the lives and legends of her parents and past generations, unearthing the tribal mythologies that shaped her kin and her own way of being in the world. The impossible question of which tribe to claim as her own is one she has long struggled the Nigerian government recognizes her as Longuda, her father's tribe; according to matrilineal tradition, Daniel belongs to her mother's tribe, the nomadic Fulani; and the language she grew up speaking is that of the Hausa tribe. But her strongest emotional connection is to her adopted California, the final place she reveals to readers through its spellbinding history.
Daniel's approach is deeply in order to reclaim her legacies, she revisits her unsettled childhood and navigates the traditions of her ancestors. Her layered narratives invoke the contrasting spiritualities of her Islam, Christianity, and magic. A Coastline Is an Immeasurable Thing is a powerful cultural distillation of mythos and ethos, mapping the far-flung corners of the Black diaspora that Daniel inherits and inhabits. Through lyrical observation and deep introspection, she probes the bonds and boundaries of Blackness, from bygone colonial empires to her present home in America.
A poetic coming-of-age memoir that probes the legacies and myths of family, race, and religion—from Nigeria to England to America
Mary-Alice Daniel's family moved from West Africa to England when she was a very young girl, leaving behind the vivid culture of her native land in the Nigerian savanna. They arrived to a blanched, cold world of prim suburbs and unfamiliar customs. So began her family's series of travels across three continents in search of places of belonging.
A Coastline Is an Immeasurable Thing ventures through the physical and mythical landscapes of Daniel's upbringing. Against the backdrop of a migratory adolescence, she reckons with race, religious conflict, culture clash, and a multiplicity of possible identities. Daniel lays bare the lives and legends of her parents and past generations, unearthing the tribal mythologies that shaped her kin and her own way of being in the world. The impossible question of which tribe to claim as her own is one she has long struggled the Nigerian government recognizes her as Longuda, her father's tribe; according to matrilineal tradition, Daniel belongs to her mother's tribe, the nomadic Fulani; and the language she grew up speaking is that of the Hausa tribe. But her strongest emotional connection is to her adopted California, the final place she reveals to readers through its spellbinding history.
Daniel's approach is deeply in order to reclaim her legacies, she revisits her unsettled childhood and navigates the traditions of her ancestors. Her layered narratives invoke the contrasting spiritualities of her Islam, Christianity, and magic. A Coastline Is an Immeasurable Thing is a powerful cultural distillation of mythos and ethos, mapping the far-flung corners of the Black diaspora that Daniel inherits and inhabits. Through lyrical observation and deep introspection, she probes the bonds and boundaries of Blackness, from bygone colonial empires to her present home in America.
272 pages, Kindle Edition
First published November 9, 2022
About the author
Mary-Alice Daniel
3 books28 followersMary-Alice Daniel was born near the Niger/Nigeria border, then raised in England and Tennessee. A cross-genre author, she has published work in New England Review, American Poetry Review, Prairie Schooner, The Iowa Review, The Yale Review, Callaloo, and several journals and anthologies.
MASS FOR SHUT-INS, 117th winner of the Yale Younger Poets Prize, was released in March 2023 and received the California Book Award. Selecting the collection, Rae Armantrout called it “Flowers of Evil for the 21st century"; the Poetry Foundation describes its “Plathian edge and ear.”
In 2022, her tri-continental memoir, A Coastline Is an Immeasurable Thing (Ecco/HarperCollins), was People’s Book of the Week and one of Kirkus Reviews’ Best Nonfiction Books of the Year.
A Cave Canem Fellow and an alumna of Yale University (BA) and the University of Michigan (MFA), she received her PhD from the University of Southern California. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at Brown University, she served as the inaugural Visiting Writer-in-Residence at Washington University in St. Louis. She held the 2024 Mary Routt Endowed Chair of Writing at Scripps College.
She turns to her third and fourth books of poetry and prose as a scholar at Princeton University.
She is obviously a Scorpio.
Find her on Twitter @MaryAlicePoetry & Instagram @drmaryalicedaniel
MASS FOR SHUT-INS, 117th winner of the Yale Younger Poets Prize, was released in March 2023 and received the California Book Award. Selecting the collection, Rae Armantrout called it “Flowers of Evil for the 21st century"; the Poetry Foundation describes its “Plathian edge and ear.”
In 2022, her tri-continental memoir, A Coastline Is an Immeasurable Thing (Ecco/HarperCollins), was People’s Book of the Week and one of Kirkus Reviews’ Best Nonfiction Books of the Year.
A Cave Canem Fellow and an alumna of Yale University (BA) and the University of Michigan (MFA), she received her PhD from the University of Southern California. Following a postdoctoral fellowship at Brown University, she served as the inaugural Visiting Writer-in-Residence at Washington University in St. Louis. She held the 2024 Mary Routt Endowed Chair of Writing at Scripps College.
She turns to her third and fourth books of poetry and prose as a scholar at Princeton University.
She is obviously a Scorpio.
Find her on Twitter @MaryAlicePoetry & Instagram @drmaryalicedaniel
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 64 reviews
January 28, 2023
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3 ½ (rounded up)
Drawn by its stunning title & cover, I requested an arc for A Coastline Is an Immeasurable Thing. For some reason or other I ended up neglecting to read it but at long last decided to give it a try, and I’m really glad that I did get round to it. Written with clarity and precision, A Coastline Is an Immeasurable Thing Mary-Alice Daniel together a more intimate coming-of-age memoir with historical accounts. Daniel writes with compelling authority and her recollections will undoubtedly plunge readers into her childhood and adolescence. She’s able to conjure up not only past feelings but vividly reenact episodes from her youth. The people, dynamics, and situations she presents us with are evocatively rendered, as they seem to capture the mood, essence even, of what is being portrayed. Daniel depicts her family with a heartfelt mixture of love, understanding, and frustration. In these more personal chapters/sections Daniel, born in Nigeria to a Longuda father and a Fulani mother, chronicles her experiences moving from Nigeria to England before finally settling in America. Daniel conveys the seen and unseen difficulties she, alongside her family, experienced once in Reading. She articulates the loneliness and confusion brought about by this dislocation and by an environment that labels you as foreign, other. Her shifting and confused perception of her identity is exacerbated by her Longuda and Fulani heritage and by her adoption of English customs and exposure to English culture. Eventually, Daniel’s family relocates to Nashville, America. Here Daniel is marked as an oddity, yet again subjected to the white gaze and often made to feel excluded from Black American culture. In retracing her childhood, Daniel reflects and gives insight into the experiences of the Black diaspora, contrasting and comparing America and England’s treatment and perception of Blackness and Black immigrants. Daniel addresses and challenges stereotypes about Nigerians, which often place them as ‘inferior’. While terms like resilient may seem trite when used to describe books concerned with immigration and Blackness, it did come to mind while I was reading this.
Much of the book adopts a more, not quite detached, but more educational tone. Daniel examines tribal traditions and mythologies, the aftereffects of colonialism, past and present internecine conflicts, and religious and cultural divides. There is a lot of history to unpack but Daniel does so swiftly and skilfully. Sure, Daniel walks down some well-treated paths, for instance when writing about Ham, but she also shines a light on forgotten, or at least overlooked, mythologies and histories. These sections often use an anthropological lens to discuss the traits, histories, and customs of the Fula and the Longuda people. In her overview of Nigeria Daniel looks at its many different ethnic groups and its religions, such as Christianity, Islam, and traditional worship, that often exacerbate civil unrest.
By depicting Nigeria as a multivalent country, Daniel demystifies Western misconceptions of Nigeria and West Africa itself. I did prefer when these more informative sections drew from Daniel’s own family histories and myths, as these family tales often enlivened the writing.
Belonging is one of this memoir’s major themes, as Daniel probes her conflicted sense of self in the face of dislocation. Daniel shows how one’s identity is shaped both by one’s home environment and by the ‘dominant’ culture of the place one grow up in. Language, accents, family lexicons, food, beliefs, mannerism, popular media, we see how all of these play a role in her ‘coming of age’. Given that movements, be it from continent to continent, or from culture to culture, and the dialogue between past and present are motifs within this memoir, Daniel did try sometimes too hard to anchor her experiences into a larger historical context. For instance, when she mentions "In 1895, the controversial Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wilde was imprisoned in Reading, the town I grew up in", which came across as very random and not particularly relevant.
While I may have felt more invested by Daniel’s more personal insights into her family and experiences growing up, I did find the themes, histories, and mythologies she surveys throughout her memoir to be captivating.
3 ½ (rounded up)
Drawn by its stunning title & cover, I requested an arc for A Coastline Is an Immeasurable Thing. For some reason or other I ended up neglecting to read it but at long last decided to give it a try, and I’m really glad that I did get round to it. Written with clarity and precision, A Coastline Is an Immeasurable Thing Mary-Alice Daniel together a more intimate coming-of-age memoir with historical accounts. Daniel writes with compelling authority and her recollections will undoubtedly plunge readers into her childhood and adolescence. She’s able to conjure up not only past feelings but vividly reenact episodes from her youth. The people, dynamics, and situations she presents us with are evocatively rendered, as they seem to capture the mood, essence even, of what is being portrayed. Daniel depicts her family with a heartfelt mixture of love, understanding, and frustration. In these more personal chapters/sections Daniel, born in Nigeria to a Longuda father and a Fulani mother, chronicles her experiences moving from Nigeria to England before finally settling in America. Daniel conveys the seen and unseen difficulties she, alongside her family, experienced once in Reading. She articulates the loneliness and confusion brought about by this dislocation and by an environment that labels you as foreign, other. Her shifting and confused perception of her identity is exacerbated by her Longuda and Fulani heritage and by her adoption of English customs and exposure to English culture. Eventually, Daniel’s family relocates to Nashville, America. Here Daniel is marked as an oddity, yet again subjected to the white gaze and often made to feel excluded from Black American culture. In retracing her childhood, Daniel reflects and gives insight into the experiences of the Black diaspora, contrasting and comparing America and England’s treatment and perception of Blackness and Black immigrants. Daniel addresses and challenges stereotypes about Nigerians, which often place them as ‘inferior’. While terms like resilient may seem trite when used to describe books concerned with immigration and Blackness, it did come to mind while I was reading this.
Much of the book adopts a more, not quite detached, but more educational tone. Daniel examines tribal traditions and mythologies, the aftereffects of colonialism, past and present internecine conflicts, and religious and cultural divides. There is a lot of history to unpack but Daniel does so swiftly and skilfully. Sure, Daniel walks down some well-treated paths, for instance when writing about Ham, but she also shines a light on forgotten, or at least overlooked, mythologies and histories. These sections often use an anthropological lens to discuss the traits, histories, and customs of the Fula and the Longuda people. In her overview of Nigeria Daniel looks at its many different ethnic groups and its religions, such as Christianity, Islam, and traditional worship, that often exacerbate civil unrest.
By depicting Nigeria as a multivalent country, Daniel demystifies Western misconceptions of Nigeria and West Africa itself. I did prefer when these more informative sections drew from Daniel’s own family histories and myths, as these family tales often enlivened the writing.
Belonging is one of this memoir’s major themes, as Daniel probes her conflicted sense of self in the face of dislocation. Daniel shows how one’s identity is shaped both by one’s home environment and by the ‘dominant’ culture of the place one grow up in. Language, accents, family lexicons, food, beliefs, mannerism, popular media, we see how all of these play a role in her ‘coming of age’. Given that movements, be it from continent to continent, or from culture to culture, and the dialogue between past and present are motifs within this memoir, Daniel did try sometimes too hard to anchor her experiences into a larger historical context. For instance, when she mentions "In 1895, the controversial Irish poet and playwright Oscar Wilde was imprisoned in Reading, the town I grew up in", which came across as very random and not particularly relevant.
While I may have felt more invested by Daniel’s more personal insights into her family and experiences growing up, I did find the themes, histories, and mythologies she surveys throughout her memoir to be captivating.
November 17, 2022
This is a deeply personal memoir of the author’s ancestry, her migration across continents, and her landing place she calls home. From Nigeria where she was born and her family history that includes the Longuda, Fulani, and Housa tribes and intersection of tribal and Christian beliefs, to her experience living in the UK. and then U.S., this book packed a fascinating trajectory. But this is not so much about the usual immigrant experience. It’s way beyond that. It’s about the essence of the author - her identity, how she became who she is, how she is an amalgam of the places she’s been a part of, the influences on her life, connection to places or not, and to her home today in Los Angeles. I loved the details about her family dating back to ancient times and the historical information coupled with rich insight into how current day Nigeria has evolved. There’s deep swaths of research shared throughout the book (for example - the origins of the name “Mary”) that makes for a nice coming together of anecdotes, cultural beliefs, facts, and personal identity. And by the way, I chuckled at her reference to the Oxford comma - yay! This is an absorbing and insightful memoir that I learned much from. Many thanks to the author, publisher, and NetGalley for the opportunity to read and review this book.
May 15, 2024
⭐️=3 | 😘=2 | 🤬=3.5 | ⚔️=2.5 | 15/16+
thoughts: this is okay? I’m just not a memoir girlie! I can see how this is telling a good story and uses its narrative to talk about Nigeria and colonialism and defining immigrant identity which is super cool! but memoirs are just... not my thing. idk.
thoughts: this is okay? I’m just not a memoir girlie! I can see how this is telling a good story and uses its narrative to talk about Nigeria and colonialism and defining immigrant identity which is super cool! but memoirs are just... not my thing. idk.
August 21, 2022
I wish I had liked this more, and am willing to believe that at least part of the problem was mine. But much of the time, I felt like I wasn't following the leaps from one part of the story to another, the switch from the personal to the universal to the historical. I'd like to listen to the story to give it another try.
December 8, 2023
in order to tell her story, she had to cover a lot of the history of her country of origin and the political/social/religious status of the few past decades. It did not feel like it was unnecessary but at the same time didn't feel like a memoir either.
that said, her poetic narrative was endearing, but the end was more than anti-climactic and felt she is trying so hard to prove her American-ness to the Americans, to prove a point no one was asking her to make. She first said she doesn't know how to answer where she is from but in the end she calls herself more American-African than the other way and when people ask her where she is from she says California which is the answer that pleases people.
here are my highlighted quotes:
"I pity my parents in the past tense"
"it was always already too late"
"the desert also wants to wander"
"Fulani defeated death, basically we need not worry"
"my mother has left me her head throwing laugh and off-key singing"
"from her, I inherit that instinct that heckles some people, to revisit all the places you have left behind and think how survivable your childhood was"
that said, her poetic narrative was endearing, but the end was more than anti-climactic and felt she is trying so hard to prove her American-ness to the Americans, to prove a point no one was asking her to make. She first said she doesn't know how to answer where she is from but in the end she calls herself more American-African than the other way and when people ask her where she is from she says California which is the answer that pleases people.
here are my highlighted quotes:
"I pity my parents in the past tense"
"it was always already too late"
"the desert also wants to wander"
"Fulani defeated death, basically we need not worry"
"my mother has left me her head throwing laugh and off-key singing"
"from her, I inherit that instinct that heckles some people, to revisit all the places you have left behind and think how survivable your childhood was"
January 10, 2023
Dr. Daniel has lived a fascinating life so far, immigrating from her native Nigeria to the UK to various parts of the US, and I loved reading about her Nigerian family and cultural life. I also enjoyed reading about her impressions of life in the US in the 90s and early 00s, as we are about the same age and share various cultural touchstones. The most evocative feature of the memoir was her exploration into belonging, and feeling generally like an outsider no matter where she called home, realizing that once you leave a place, both you and the place grow apart, and there are no unadulterated homecomings. In this sense, this memoir reminded me quite a bit of Andre Aciman's memoir False Papers, where he writes about his similar journey from Egypt to Europe to the US. The least evocative feature of this memoir is the jumping, at times discohesive narrative style, for which I'm deducting one star.
August 26, 2023
Rich explanations, beautiful imagery and several sentences that really resonated with me as someone who has also grown and moved in different places and times. MA Daniel is a poet and this prose is organized in a way that took a little getting used to but captivating at times nonetheless. I recommend reading the antilogue after the prologue and then again at the end. I may go back and note down those special sentences.
Read
February 14, 2023I learned a bit about Nigeria and the Fulani tribe (Arewa knot) but I found this mostly quite scholarly in tone which is great but I was expecting a more easy reading memoir.
June 20, 2023
This memoir taught me so much about Nigerian culture, geography, and history, but it also helped reconcile some of my own issues with being an immigrant. The title of the book is a nod to the idea that immigrant stories, experiences, and identity are truly immeasurable.
November 10, 2023
Gorgeous geographic and cultural memoir across northern Nigeria, England, New England, the American South, and finally California. She weaves those threads of family culture, colonialism, religious influence, immigrant striving and alienation, and personal identity beautifully. If you’ve ever felt like an outsider, it will resonate.
Want to read
May 19, 2023A moving transcultural, transnational memoir in the vein of Enough: A Memoir of Mistakes, Mania, and Motherhood by Amelia Zachry, The White Mosque: A Memoir by Sofia Samatar, or Homebound: An Uprooted Daughter’s Reflections on Belonging by Vanessa A. Bee about a woman of mixed national heritage seeking her place in our increasingly transcultural, transethnic world.
In Daniel’s case, she moves from Nigeria on the coast of West Africa to England, and from there, to the United States. Across the span of three geographic zones, she also crosses into and between multiple cultures: Nigerian, Black-British, Black-American, coming to terms with herself as a bit of everything. Intersected between the racial and ethnic lines are the class lines and linguistic lines Daniel must also negotiate. This is a story of code-switching across multiple planes.
This is also a universal coming-of-age story about how we come to understand perceptions of ourselves from within and beyond ourselves. Who we are is not a singular explanation, but one refracted through a prism, the final view is ultimately dependent on the eye of the beholder and the position where they stand. What Daniel’s highlights in this memoir is both how dependent this view is on historical, cultural, class and geographic context.
For readers who enjoy memoirs and those which trace the processes of identity change, this is a winner.
In Daniel’s case, she moves from Nigeria on the coast of West Africa to England, and from there, to the United States. Across the span of three geographic zones, she also crosses into and between multiple cultures: Nigerian, Black-British, Black-American, coming to terms with herself as a bit of everything. Intersected between the racial and ethnic lines are the class lines and linguistic lines Daniel must also negotiate. This is a story of code-switching across multiple planes.
This is also a universal coming-of-age story about how we come to understand perceptions of ourselves from within and beyond ourselves. Who we are is not a singular explanation, but one refracted through a prism, the final view is ultimately dependent on the eye of the beholder and the position where they stand. What Daniel’s highlights in this memoir is both how dependent this view is on historical, cultural, class and geographic context.
For readers who enjoy memoirs and those which trace the processes of identity change, this is a winner.
July 27, 2022
I'm drawn to story, especially the life stories of others. I also read to better understand the experiences of others. This book satisfied both of my preferences in a lovely way.
In "A Coastline is an Immeasureable Thing," Mary-Alice Daniel interweaves history, geography, myth, and personal story in such a way as to make the reader ponder, reread, and reflect. Through honest, poetic writing, the author explores her origins and the complexities contained therein. She gives a window into her life in a way that is both beautiful to read and also demands thoughtful contemplation on the part of the reader. I come away from reading this book with a greater understanding of not only third culture kids, but also how origin stories are both complicated and hold immense worth.
While I enjoyed reading this book and do not regret investing the time to do so, it was also a read that moved a bit slowly. I often felt it was not as much about the author as about her country of origin and its complexities, but this also made sense given the nature of the book. If you are looking for a traditional memoir full of personal story, this book is likely not for you. If, however, you are interested in exploring culture, identity, and origin through the lens of personal story, you won't be disappointed.
*I received an advance reader copy of this book from the publisher.*
In "A Coastline is an Immeasureable Thing," Mary-Alice Daniel interweaves history, geography, myth, and personal story in such a way as to make the reader ponder, reread, and reflect. Through honest, poetic writing, the author explores her origins and the complexities contained therein. She gives a window into her life in a way that is both beautiful to read and also demands thoughtful contemplation on the part of the reader. I come away from reading this book with a greater understanding of not only third culture kids, but also how origin stories are both complicated and hold immense worth.
While I enjoyed reading this book and do not regret investing the time to do so, it was also a read that moved a bit slowly. I often felt it was not as much about the author as about her country of origin and its complexities, but this also made sense given the nature of the book. If you are looking for a traditional memoir full of personal story, this book is likely not for you. If, however, you are interested in exploring culture, identity, and origin through the lens of personal story, you won't be disappointed.
*I received an advance reader copy of this book from the publisher.*
June 20, 2023
3 1/2 stars, rounded up to 4.
I received this book in a Goodreads giveaway.
The stories are moving and engaging, combining scholarly analysis with personal experiences. Ms Daniel spends a good deal of time analyzing language, not only Hausa versus English, but in a linguistic sense how words, names, etc define different aspects of our lives. She explores the history of Nigeria, as well as its current state, and moves through her own experiences related to her origins and what she learns about her new homes in the UK and the US. Drifting through multiple identities in an attempt to discover herself and where she belongs.
As a few other reviewers mentioned, I did have trouble following Ms Daniel's transitions from one idea to the next, from chapter to chapter or even within a chapter. I also felt the ending was a bit abrupt. Having spent so much time on her childhood, I was surprised that her college experiences were limited to a single anecdote about her trying to hide in the dorms over a winter break, and her adult life spent more time on the history of California than her actual experiences. Why not just end the memoir at childhood, if she didn't intend to delve further into her adulthood? This would perhaps have been better as a series of short stories. However, I did in enjoy it overall and would recommend.
I received this book in a Goodreads giveaway.
The stories are moving and engaging, combining scholarly analysis with personal experiences. Ms Daniel spends a good deal of time analyzing language, not only Hausa versus English, but in a linguistic sense how words, names, etc define different aspects of our lives. She explores the history of Nigeria, as well as its current state, and moves through her own experiences related to her origins and what she learns about her new homes in the UK and the US. Drifting through multiple identities in an attempt to discover herself and where she belongs.
As a few other reviewers mentioned, I did have trouble following Ms Daniel's transitions from one idea to the next, from chapter to chapter or even within a chapter. I also felt the ending was a bit abrupt. Having spent so much time on her childhood, I was surprised that her college experiences were limited to a single anecdote about her trying to hide in the dorms over a winter break, and her adult life spent more time on the history of California than her actual experiences. Why not just end the memoir at childhood, if she didn't intend to delve further into her adulthood? This would perhaps have been better as a series of short stories. However, I did in enjoy it overall and would recommend.
March 6, 2023
A fascinating blend of memoir and history and cogent comment. My problem was with the often confusing moves between/among time and place.
However, this is an important book. Daniel's early life in the Nigerian savannah, her family's move to England, later to several cities in America, and her eventual landing in California track a migrant's difficult journey.
I was particularly interested in her "take" on her parents - lines of descent, language, tribe, religious conflict, the influence of Pentecostal faith and action, her education, inability to assimilate, yearning to do so, and her eventual adoption of California as her American home. The family's struggle to be accepted, the book's capture of the African diaspora, the colonialist legacy, and the awareness of having multiple identities are moving.
Her love of poetic language mirrors the story well.
"My names change as I do. Moving around this world. Might be some form of magic...Bitter or beloved ocean or child."
"I am a poet of place...Both physical and mythical landscapes compel me - to distill the mythos and ethos of a place; to venture through vast architectures of personal and cultural identity. My writing is charged by the friction created by conflicting ideas at work in my history."
A book worth reading.
However, this is an important book. Daniel's early life in the Nigerian savannah, her family's move to England, later to several cities in America, and her eventual landing in California track a migrant's difficult journey.
I was particularly interested in her "take" on her parents - lines of descent, language, tribe, religious conflict, the influence of Pentecostal faith and action, her education, inability to assimilate, yearning to do so, and her eventual adoption of California as her American home. The family's struggle to be accepted, the book's capture of the African diaspora, the colonialist legacy, and the awareness of having multiple identities are moving.
Her love of poetic language mirrors the story well.
"My names change as I do. Moving around this world. Might be some form of magic...Bitter or beloved ocean or child."
"I am a poet of place...Both physical and mythical landscapes compel me - to distill the mythos and ethos of a place; to venture through vast architectures of personal and cultural identity. My writing is charged by the friction created by conflicting ideas at work in my history."
A book worth reading.
September 8, 2023
A writer's dream to read... I had just started another book, couldn't get into it, thought maybe it was that I was antsy and just didn't feel like reading... and then I opened the first page of this and felt instantly invigorated and ready to read.
It is true what some say in their reviews that this is not a classic memoir. There is no real beginning and end, there is no specific hero's journey or narrative arc, and I don't feel as if I know the author particularly well after reading it.
But... I don't need any of that. I will read any book she writes because her craft and her questioning, investigative mind are so very good, and the drips she shared reveal beyond the personal into something bigger.
This is, at its core, an exercise in naming and identification. Who am I? Who am I told that I am? Who am I in relation to this land, that person, this people, that legend, this memory? Each chapter digs into another aspect of identity... some given to the author, some happenstance, some claimed by her.
It is rich and complex and a question that could last a lifetime. In writing this, Mary-Alice Daniel has created a new template and approach to memoir... one that is circular and multi-faceted, one which every writing instructor in the world could find a golden assignment in.
It is true what some say in their reviews that this is not a classic memoir. There is no real beginning and end, there is no specific hero's journey or narrative arc, and I don't feel as if I know the author particularly well after reading it.
But... I don't need any of that. I will read any book she writes because her craft and her questioning, investigative mind are so very good, and the drips she shared reveal beyond the personal into something bigger.
This is, at its core, an exercise in naming and identification. Who am I? Who am I told that I am? Who am I in relation to this land, that person, this people, that legend, this memory? Each chapter digs into another aspect of identity... some given to the author, some happenstance, some claimed by her.
It is rich and complex and a question that could last a lifetime. In writing this, Mary-Alice Daniel has created a new template and approach to memoir... one that is circular and multi-faceted, one which every writing instructor in the world could find a golden assignment in.
November 29, 2022
I received a digital copy of this book from NetGalley and Ecco. I voluntarily read and reviewed a copy of this book. All thoughts and opinions are my own.
Fascinating journey of self-discovery and identity.
I have come to the realization that absolutely love reading memoirs. I really appreciate the permission granted by the writer to come into their lives and their memories and join them on their journey. This book is just another that I really loved and, both, couldn’t wait to keep reading and didn’t want to finish. The journey and storytelling are wonderful throughout.
A remarkable, heart-filled sharing of a very personal journey.
While reading this book, I felt like I was catching up with an old friend on all the things that had happened since the last time we met. Over coffee or dinner or whatever: “Start from the beginning and don’t stop.” There are times when we laugh, there are times when the words are whispered, and there are times for hugs. But throughout the story we are just there. Together.
Like sitting down with an old friend and catching up on life. I really enjoyed this one.
Stars 4
Would I Recommend? Yes
Fascinating journey of self-discovery and identity.
I have come to the realization that absolutely love reading memoirs. I really appreciate the permission granted by the writer to come into their lives and their memories and join them on their journey. This book is just another that I really loved and, both, couldn’t wait to keep reading and didn’t want to finish. The journey and storytelling are wonderful throughout.
A remarkable, heart-filled sharing of a very personal journey.
While reading this book, I felt like I was catching up with an old friend on all the things that had happened since the last time we met. Over coffee or dinner or whatever: “Start from the beginning and don’t stop.” There are times when we laugh, there are times when the words are whispered, and there are times for hugs. But throughout the story we are just there. Together.
Like sitting down with an old friend and catching up on life. I really enjoyed this one.
Stars 4
Would I Recommend? Yes
June 23, 2023
A Coastline is an Immeasurable Thing is a memoir by Mary-Alice Daniel that relates her migration from West Africa to England to the United States. Leaving the Nigerian savanna, the place of her birth, she arrives as a young child in the new world of England. This was the beginning of her family's travels across three continents in search of belonging and a place to call home. In her moves, Daniel must deal with issues of race, cultural differences, religion, and her very identity. In order to deal with these issues, Daniel takes a deeply personal approach. She addresses her confusion of determining which Nigerian tribe she should identify with and in the process relates the mythology and the attraction of her native land. She also addresses the problems that she encounters in both England and in the United States when she tries to assimilate herself into the culture of these countries. Her story is both personal and informative and left me with a better understanding of Africa and of the difficulties faced by someone trying to determine who she is and why she is the way that she is.
January 25, 2023
This is a beautifully rendered, genre-bending work. It says memoir, and it truly is the authors life story. But it also a bit of well-researched history as well as some self-helpy sections on identity and finding oneself. (Please don’t read it because I labeled it self-help, it’s not that kind of self-help.)
I loved the memoir: one woman’s story of living in different places, growing up feeling different and only finding her “place” once she has grown into her own skin. So many of her issues of identity are questions that many in our increasingly globalized society will only continue to contemplate.
These questions on identity were so deep and difficult: what does it mean to be “from” a place? What does it mean to assume the cultural identity of your ancestors, particularly, your parents? If you shoulder their cultural legacy, how much of their culture do you have to carry? Is it just running in your blood? Do you need to know the language? Do you have to know their traditions? Do you have to have stepped on the same dirt or breathed in the same air?
And what about a place you’ve been or lived for a significant part of your life (maybe a long time, maybe an important time)? Can you assume the cultural identity of a place that doesn’t run in your blood?
Lots of good stuff to think about. Highly recommend this read.
I loved the memoir: one woman’s story of living in different places, growing up feeling different and only finding her “place” once she has grown into her own skin. So many of her issues of identity are questions that many in our increasingly globalized society will only continue to contemplate.
These questions on identity were so deep and difficult: what does it mean to be “from” a place? What does it mean to assume the cultural identity of your ancestors, particularly, your parents? If you shoulder their cultural legacy, how much of their culture do you have to carry? Is it just running in your blood? Do you need to know the language? Do you have to know their traditions? Do you have to have stepped on the same dirt or breathed in the same air?
And what about a place you’ve been or lived for a significant part of your life (maybe a long time, maybe an important time)? Can you assume the cultural identity of a place that doesn’t run in your blood?
Lots of good stuff to think about. Highly recommend this read.
August 7, 2022
This book is truly immersive, smart, compelling, and original. I'm blown away by Daniel's poetic, smooth, stunning prose and her ability to balance both evocative and beautiful language with a steady narrative and factual history and context. This memoir is a true feat and I'm so happy it exists. Daniel is a real talent and reading her work really educated me and provided so much nuance and complexity to my minimal understanding of so many things. The way she immerses her personal experience with her family, too, is both gentle and honest, and I really couldn't look away. Definitely one of the best works of nonfiction I've read in years.
August 20, 2022
The dichotomy of existence that lives in the experience of an immigrant is rich and overpowering. Add to that the reality of a “home” existing not as a place, but a personal feeling and you have only shifting truths. The author Mary-Alice Daniels builds a narrative in her memoir that speaks to the those truths. Each chapter a new topic, the reader walks with Daniels as she speaks to the voices, traditions, customs, hardships, ignorance and choice that make up her childhood and memories; ultimately, each constructs a part of her. The reader as bystander learns by watching- the influences, history and truths blending truths into a life. Enjoyable read!
November 22, 2022
Mary-Alice Daniel's A Coastline Is an Immeasurable Thing is an engaging and important story of immigration that rises, in the final chapter on California, to the level of sheer poetry. The passages on religion and religious trauma were particularly compelling to me. I managed to get an advanced reading copy. The book launches in less than a week. You should definitely preorder a copy.
Disclosure: Though I had nothing to do with this book, I do know Daniel personally and did work with her on one of her other books, the one that won the Yale Younger Poets Prize, which you should also preorder.
Disclosure: Though I had nothing to do with this book, I do know Daniel personally and did work with her on one of her other books, the one that won the Yale Younger Poets Prize, which you should also preorder.
March 14, 2023
This book put into words so many relatable aspects to the American immigrant experience. I am a 2nd generation Japanese American and still felt so much depth and nuance to Mary-Alice Daniel's experience as a 1st generation Nigerian immigrant to England and the United States that I was often brought to tears. The undercurrent of always feeling "other" in a country that your body happens to be taking up space in; the struggle with identity; the notion that you aren't American enough, and always have to prove yourself in a place where documentation says you belong but you are constantly reminded that you aren't "from here"... the author did a great job of bringing all of this to life in her memoir.
March 18, 2023
I am of the belief that you can be one thing and not degrade another. Some of this memoir is wonderful and some of it not so much. A part of me wishes I had read a book on California when I lived there to know more about its origins but that idea has only come to me now… I may just do it anyways.
Regardless of all my inner stuff, her take on some of the most precious pieces of me were obviously repulsive but I am here to say that I get it, simply because our experiences are vastly different.
This memoir was written for her and her alone. This is what I wholly believe so, I will take my thoughts elsewhere.
Stunning cover though!
Regardless of all my inner stuff, her take on some of the most precious pieces of me were obviously repulsive but I am here to say that I get it, simply because our experiences are vastly different.
This memoir was written for her and her alone. This is what I wholly believe so, I will take my thoughts elsewhere.
Stunning cover though!
April 22, 2023
This was a good relatively straightforward story. I wished it had a bit more “heart” (emotion? poetry?) in the telling. And wished there was less random jumping around between scenes and chapters…but maybe that was the author’s clever way of sharing with us the lurching motion she felt as a child to be picked up and moved from one country to another without much warning?! Anyway, I liked learning about the political history of Nigeria, how the author feels connected to her tribal roots, what it feels like to come home and feel like a stranger there, and what even constitutes a sense of home. I’d give this three point five stars.
August 31, 2023
I had high hopes for this book, as I do love a good memoir, particularly one involving a coming-of-age story. I wished it were more of a memoir than a history text - it seems a lot of unnecessary information, mostly historical that, in my opinion, distracted from her story, which as an African immigrant moving across continents is not a new story. I was waiting for her own unique, more in-depth perspective on her immigration story. I was particularly interested in her relationship with her mother. ALWAYS the mother! Can we catch a break?!
On the less critical side, this was the author's first novel.
On the less critical side, this was the author's first novel.
July 29, 2022
A journey to oneself and identity, in a a world where countries question "where are you from?", as if you are a piece that does not fit, but try to painfully force yourself into a puzzle to somehow please others, knowing, painfully, you never will. Always standing out, contradicting societies judgement, the author finds her way to create her own portrait of who she is and where she belongs. Mixed with personal stories and history, the reader observes her journey and finding a reflection she can finally call her own. Beautifully written.
June 11, 2023
“The yearly Hajj takes place during the final month of the Islamic calendar. This desert-crossing engine of mass movement became another routine disruption in the rhythm of my kin. A family of working migrants moves east together-historically by camel, now overloading lorries. They inch along the route incrementally, as it takes years to finance their onward passage. For some, the Hajj is the last journey taken in a lifetime, for which one leaves having no expectation of return.
My family, although going in reverse, going west-we, too, have always been as pilgrims on progress.”
My family, although going in reverse, going west-we, too, have always been as pilgrims on progress.”
July 20, 2023
I really liked the parts of this book that I expected. Pieces that were really this woman's account of her life and moving from country to country. It was hard to get through about half of the book, because it was essentially a history of Nigeria (and even a lengthy piece on California). She wrote those sections great, but it wasn't a huge interest for me personally, so I kept zoning out. History was always hard for me in school just because of my lack of interest, and apparently that hasn't changed. HAHA
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November 27, 2023“The Nigerian government recognizes her as Longuda, her father's tribe; according to matrilineal tradition, Daniel belongs to her mother's tribe, the nomadic Fulani; and the language she grew up speaking is that of the Hausa tribe. But her strongest emotional connection is to her adopted California” - GR
I read A Coastline Is An Immeasurable Thing last month and those dive into Daniel's search for a place of belonging, her ancestral, coupled with her feelings on religion were the best part of reading this memoir that didn't feel like a memoir to me. I'd recommend the audiobook
I read A Coastline Is An Immeasurable Thing last month and those dive into Daniel's search for a place of belonging, her ancestral, coupled with her feelings on religion were the best part of reading this memoir that didn't feel like a memoir to me. I'd recommend the audiobook
April 9, 2023
Everything you want to know about Nigerian tribes, culture, language, customs, Daniel has compiled a comprehensive, authentic reference. I appreciated her immigrant story, wandering the world, searching for a place to belong. For me, the narrative had an objective feeling, from someone outside looking in, with no emotion, no passion. There was not one passage I wanted to write down and hold forever. The prose is factual, from the brain, not the heart.
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