Books by Our Writers
Dear Friends (And Friends of Friends),
I am writing you to announce the publication of my new book, Sick of
Nature. Sick is a kind of greatest hits collection--mostly enthusiastic,
sometimes angry, often sarcastic, occasionaly drunken--including essays that
describe my last day as a bookstore clerk after attacking a customer, my
obsession with Ultimate (Frisbee), my envy of Sebastian Junger, my hatred of
trophy homes, and a final essay combining my daughter Hadley's birth with
the arrival of coyotes in urban Boston. It is an attempt to break out of
the "nature writer" label that has been stuck on me, or at least to broaden
the definition of that label. It is also, I hope, a little funny.
Sick of Nature has a very limited advertising budget and will rely greatly
on (your) word of mouth. If you like it (and agree with me about it being
funny), please consider telling friends. The business of publishing has
become increasingly monolithic, less about literature than about marketing.
For this book to succeed commercially I will need to wage a sort of guerilla
war. This is fitting in a way since the book is all about stirring things
up. I hope you will help me in the stirring.
Sincerely,
David Gessner
Book Description Click Here to Buy the Book
David Gessner's Return of the Osprey is "among the classics of American
nature writing," said the Boston Globe. So why does this critically
acclaimed nature writer now declare himself to be "sick of nature"?
In diverse, diverting, and frequently hilarious essays, Gessner wrestles
with father figures both biological and literary, reflects on the pleasures
and absurdities of the writing life, explores the significance of place for
both his work and his sense of wellbeing, and rails at the confines of the
nature genre even as he continues to find fresh inspiration for his writing
in the natural world. In the end, he learns to embrace—or at least
tolerate—the label he once rejected.
Whether kicking at the limits of his category or explaining why he was
fired from his job as a bookstore clerk; whether recalling his youthful
obsession with Ultimate Frisbee or recounting an adventure in the jungles of
Belize; whether lampooning his own writerly envy of Sebastian Junger or
raging at the over-development of Cape Cod or searching for solace in nature
in the wake of September 11, Gessner ranges from the personal to the natural
in lyrical reflections on writing, self, and society. In a powerful
concluding essay, Gessner moves from the arrival of coyotes in the suburbs
of Boston to the birth of his first child in an extended meditation on his
characteristic themes of wildness, place, and creativity.
"There is a near cult religion of nature that utilizes sacred texts that
require any writer in the field to conform to doctrine or be thrown to the
lions. With Sick of Nature, David Gessner has taken his chances with the
lions. Here's a book that jettisons all the standard platitudes and proceeds
without caution. Not since the diatribes from Edward Abbey has anyone in
this field come out and made such as sacrilege of our holy texts (although
many other authors would probably like to). This collection of essays, which
includes excursions in cities and in the wilds, delivered with the same
panache as the lead essay, will help break us out of the cant."—John Hanson
Mitchell, editor of Sanctuary magazine and author of The Wildest Place on
Earth
DAVID GESSNER is author of A Wild, Rank Place (UPNE, 1997), Under the
Devil's Thumb (1999) and Return of the Osprey: A Season of Flight and Wonder
(2001), which was a selection of the Book of the Month Club and named one of
the top ten nonfiction titles of 2001 by the Boston Globe. He has taught
environmental writing at Harvard University and is currently an assistant
professor in the creative writing program at University of North Carolina
Wilmington.
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