Surfacing is part memoir and part travelogue, taking us on a tour from a Yup’ik village in Alaska, to China, to Westray, Scotland. We explore deep time and our connections to the past via the archeological findings that show us how people lived and survived, and touching on human mortality through Jamie’s account of her father fading and passing away. 
The essays are only loosely connected but that was fine for me, although I saw a few reviews that didn’t like it. I don’t think essay collections have to be super focused on one thing (and if they are, they can get repetitive). I loved Jamie’s writing. It was poetic and visual so you could truly place yourself in her shoes. A truly wonderful collection and it has at least mentally bumped her other books up my tbr.