The Magic Eye
A Story of Saving & Life
and Place in the Age of Anxiety
By Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg
Mammoth Publications ~ Coming in July, 2025
Nothing could have prepared me for being diagnosed with a rare and deadly eye cancer in the middle of trying to save the Kansas land where my husband and I live. From the 2019 diagnosis through the pandemic, I entered into both a risky plan to buy our fifth-generation farm and daunting treatment to survive the large tumor in my right eye. The Magic Eye tells the story of saving a life (my own) and a place, a 130-acre farm we had been actively turning into a wildlife refuge for three decades.
The tallgrass prairie, extending from Mexico to Canada, is one of our most endangered ecosystems on this continent with less than 4% still intact. The very aggressive ocular melanoma I had only affects five out of a million people. But here I am, and here is our land, which is now becoming part of a conservation easement so that it can be protected in perpetuity. The Magic Eye is also about how community can make surviving such odds possible, whether for a human or a prairie.
“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
Book Tour
Caryn will be touring with The Magic Eye for the next year or so. Please check back for more dates.
May 13: Brave Voice: A delightful pre-release reading for participants at Brave Voice: Writing and Singing For Your Life at White Memorial Camp, Council Grove, KS.
June 19: Featured Reader at Poetluck: A special pre-release reading with books available at the Writers' Colony at Dairy Hollow, 515 Spring St., Eureka Springs, AR.
July 17: Book Launch: The Raven Bookstore: Join Caryn and special guests for this special evening featuring a reading, q & a, ample refreshments, sweet surprises, and celebration. 7 p.m., Raven Bookstore, 809 Mass. St., Lawrence, KS.
Sept.: Ireland Book Tour: Readings at three locations: Falls Hotel and Conference Center, Ennistymon, 7 p.m., Mon., Sept. 1 for participants in Brave Voice Ireland; Charlie Bryne's, Galway, 7 p.m., Sept. 12; and with Fiona Bolger at Books Upstairs, 2 p.m., Sept. 14.
Oct. 9: Virtual: Featured Writer at Journal for Expressive Writing Open Mic: Join Caryn and other writers at this vibrant open mic. Details to come.
Oct. 28: Delaware Street Commons: A Reading and Conversation on Place and Community in Poetry and Memoir: Reading and conversation with Dan Bentley, hosted by Jim Gilkeson. 7 p.m. Delaware Street Commons community room, 1222 Delaware, Lawrence, KS.
Nov. 21: The Writers Place Reading Series: Reading with Gary Lechliter and Catherine Anderson, 7 p.m., The Writers Place, 31 W. 31st St., Kansas City, MO.
Early Praise for The Magic Eye
“No endorsement can do justice to this vivid, lyric, wise, wry, compassionate, profoundly spiritual memoir ofpassage 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 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?
“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
“You might expect that a former Poet Laureate of Kansas would have a way with words. But with this narrative, you find yourself immersed in a world that transcends words to evoke a visceral feeling of life’s fragility and transitory nature. Comforting connections with a community of caring souls and the natural environment in which Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg is grounded provides sustenance and relatable stories worthy of being shared.”
~ Dave Kendall, Filmmaker and Media Anthropologist, Prairie Hollow Productions
“The Magic Eye is indeed so. Magic, not in the sense of the fantastical but in making meaning out of thick pain. Caryn has gifted us with a poly-ocular view of life, death, darkness, and light that is inspiring, guiding, and uplifting. She uses her mixed bag of inheritance to conjure up the impossible out of seemingly catastrophic events. Most importantly, this memoir reminds us that our bodies ‘are not islands, and even islands aren’t separate from what surrounds and changes them over time.’ Her unwavering commitment to saving land, which is also her way to save her body, and her fascination with naming turtles and feelings, gift us with a chance to connect our own lives with our common humanity. The sharpness of her lyricism opens the heart to the wisdom of ‘cancer and treatment don’t change who we are but rather reveal it.’”
~Marianela Medrano, PhD, author of Rooting and other titles
“The body is a land and the land is a body. Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg tells a dramatic, compelling, compassionate story about her second experience with cancer—an ocular melanoma—and her and her
husband’s journey to save the family land. Turtles play an important part; after all, it's turtles all the way down. Caryn's struggles through the difficulties of cancer treatment, coupled with tornados, people's
comings and goings, and the pandemic, are inspiring. I loved this book and would recommend this book to anyone who struggles with the uncertainties of life, which is everyone. It's incredibly well-written, poetic even; a joy to read.”
~ Lewis Mehl-Madrona, Associate Clinical Professor of Family Medicine, University of New England and author of Coyote Healing: Miracles in Narrative Medicine
“In The Magic Eye, Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg shows us how family, unforgettable friends, and the natural world knit together a net supporting her trip to ocular cancer-land and her efforts to save her family’s farm. Caryn’s story asks unwieldy questions about life and land ownership, while relishing the small, minute-by-minute gifts we get by living in this world. The Magic Eye shows us how a memoir can help us recognize ourselves better by doing what she does: recognizing the sacred and the everyday, which might be the same.”
~ Louise Krug, author of How to Explain: A Memoir
“Realizing one's story is tied to the land, land that has witnessed our hardest and best moments, is so humbling and comforting. This is a brave memoir, exposing the strength and vulnerability of surviving through our relationships with the land. Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg shows us, as we care for the land, the land cares for us all.”
~ Courtney Masterson, ecologist, educator, land steward, and executive director of Native Lands Restoration Collaborative, Inc.
“Caryn Mirriam-Goldberg's memoir reminds me of all the interconnections of our existence and the importance of recognizing the love that helps us heal. Not everyone can be cured, but everyone can be healed. As a physician I am concerned about the health of my patients and also about the health of my community and global environment. Only a poet with a deep sense of meaning and purpose could accomplish this feat of literary creation. It is a book that I will read, re-read, and share with my patients and their families.”
~ Richard L. Deming, MD, FACR, FACRO, Medical Director, MercyOne Richard Deming Cancer Center and Founder, Above + Beyond Cancer
