Lost In Summerland
Essays
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $12.99
Publisher Description
Barrett Swanson embarks on a personal quest across the United States to uncover what it means to be an American amid the swirl of our post-truth climate in this collection of critically acclaimed essays and reportage.
A trip with his brother to a New York psychic community becomes a rollicking tour through the world of American spiritualism. At a wilderness retreat in Ohio, men seek a cure for toxic masculinity, while in the hinterlands of Wisconsin, antiwar veterans turn to farming when they cannot sustain the heroic myth of service. And when his best friend’s body washes up on the shores of the Mississippi River, he falls into the gullet of true crime discussion boards, exploring the stamina of conspiracy theories along the cankered byways of the Midwest.
In this exhilarating debut, Barrett Swanson introduces us to a new reality. At a moment when grand unifying narratives have splintered into competing storylines, these critically acclaimed essays document the many routes by which people are struggling to find stability in the aftermath of our country’s political and economic collapse, sometimes at dire and disillusioning costs.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Journalist Swanson investigates in his searching debut what he sees as America's pervasive spiritual restlessness and alienation. In probing his central concern of how American communities cope with and find meaning in the wake of "national turmoil or geopolitical crisis," Swanson mixes in personal stories about his own search for greater fulfillment. In "Consciousness Razing," he attends Evryman, a three-day, all-male retreat in Ohio where men confront their toxic masculinity, and is disappointed by the reluctance among the attendees to seriously consider the structural forces "behind their fear and instability." "The Soldier and the Soil" is a portrait of Steve Acheson, an anti-war veteran in Wisconsin who turned the "star-spangled gallantry promulgated in textbooks and Hollywood blockbusters" of veterans on its head. "Midwestern Gothic" shines a light on how pervasive conspiracy theories are in the industrial Midwest, in the wake of the mysterious death of the author's best friend. Swanson often accompanies scenes of grief with moments of levity, as in "Okay Forever," when he is unable to choose a gift at a hospital gift shop for his brother who has a traumatic brain injury, and ends up "sobbing in public with face pressed against the stuffed pectoral of an oversized Foghorn Leghorn." Full of measured skepticism, Swanson's sharp interrogation of contemporary American life hits hard and true.
