In Phantom Limb, Theresa Kishkan invites her readers to explore culture and nature by looking at landscape and place through a series of historical lenses, ranging from natural history to family history to the broader notions of regional and human history. In travel essays such as "The One Currach Returning Alone" and "Well" she explores her affinity with Ireland, the weight of its history and geography, the roads that lead to collective memory, and the magic of its wishing wells. In other essays Kishkan takes us to conservative Utah where the discovery of her first Drunkard's Path quilt serves as both a talisman and a gentle reminder of tolerance and diversity that unfamiliar cultures elicit from us, while they also teach us how bound we are to the soil and air of our own home. Whether waking her daughter for early morning Leonid meteor showers or measuring the emotional connections of her grandmother's glass paperweight in order to learn the secret life of memories belonging to mothers and daughters, Kishkan's writing allows us intimate portraits of family. Resonating throughout this collection, especially when describing the natural world, is a rich lyricism and a distinctive visceral imagery.