The Thin Places

“It is tempting to say that The Thin Places explores two unconnected lands—except the point of Kevin Koch’s wise and watchful book is precisely that there are no unconnected places. Whether in the Driftless region or in the spirit-haunted West of Ireland, Koch comprehends the numinous, and his lyric prose reveals how landscape and myth speak to us in ways somehow both outside and beyond language.”


—James Silas Rogers, Editor, New Hibernia Review: A Record of Irish Studies





“In The Thin Places, Kevin Koch offers a unique journey into place, history, and spirit. He leads us in a revealing conversation between two particular landscapes—between Dubuque and Dublin, Iowa and Ireland, the Driftless and the Druidic, the indigenous and immigrant. In juxtaposing these realms, he expands his, and our, perspective on what it means to dwell deeply in any place.


—Curt Meine, Co-editor, The Driftless Reader





“A quest through time and geography, a parting of the veil between the known and mysterious, Kevin Koch’s The Thin Places will ignite your curiosity and lead you to reconceive your own home ground.”


—Tamara Dean, Driftless-area author of The Human-Powered Home





“Kevin Koch’s The Thin Places is a work of deep thoughtfulness and pressing urgency. In drawing connections between Ireland and the Driftless region, this book works like a loom, weaving together seemingly disparate threads into a single, beautiful fabric, and inspiring us to root ourselves more deeply in our native places.”


—Austin Smith, author of Flyover Country: Poems