Keynote
A vital, intimate inquiry into the astonishing connections between personal and ecological loneliness
Book Title
The Age of Loneliness
Subtitle
Essays
Cover Image
- “Marris combines personal and natural history to potent effect, and the elegiac prose renders palpable the distance that modernity has placed between humans and the environment. Readers will be awed.”—Publishers Weekly, starred review
Body
In this debut essay collection, Laura Marris reframes environmental degradation by setting aside the conventional, catastrophic framework of the Anthropocene in favor of that of the Eremocene, the age of loneliness, marked by the dramatic thinning of wildlife populations and by isolation between and among species. She asks: How do we add to archives of ecological memory? How can we notice and document what's missing in the landscapes closest to us?
Filled with equal parts alienation and wonder, each essay immerses readers in a different strange landscape of the Eremocene. Among them are the Buffalo airport with its snowy owls and the purgatories of commuter flights, layovers, and long-distance relationships; a life-size model city built solely for self-driving cars; the coasts of New England and the ever-evolving relationship between humans and horseshoe crabs; and the Connecticut woods Marris revisits for the first time after her father’s death, where she participates in the annual Christmas Bird Count and encounters presence and absence in turn.
Vivid, keenly observed, and driven by a lively and lyrical voice, The Age of Loneliness is a moving examination of the dangers of loneliness, the surprising histories of ecological loss, and the ways that community science—which relies on the embodied evidence of “ground truth”—can help us recognize, and maybe even recover, what we’ve learned to live without.
Filled with equal parts alienation and wonder, each essay immerses readers in a different strange landscape of the Eremocene. Among them are the Buffalo airport with its snowy owls and the purgatories of commuter flights, layovers, and long-distance relationships; a life-size model city built solely for self-driving cars; the coasts of New England and the ever-evolving relationship between humans and horseshoe crabs; and the Connecticut woods Marris revisits for the first time after her father’s death, where she participates in the annual Christmas Bird Count and encounters presence and absence in turn.
Vivid, keenly observed, and driven by a lively and lyrical voice, The Age of Loneliness is a moving examination of the dangers of loneliness, the surprising histories of ecological loss, and the ways that community science—which relies on the embodied evidence of “ground truth”—can help us recognize, and maybe even recover, what we’ve learned to live without.
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About the Author
Credit: Photographer Credit / Pat Cray
Praise
- “The Age of Loneliness is a gorgeous, poignant guide to finding one another in a time of loss.”—Michelle Nijhuis, author of Beloved Beasts
- “The Age of Loneliness calls to us from our era of extinction like a bird we thought we had lost. Laura Marris is a prophet whose patient song calls us to attention, to mercy, and finally, to each other.”—Tomás Q. Morín
- “The Age of Loneliness is a stunning book. Both personal and planetary, roving in its intelligence and deeply rooted in its lyrical observation, Marris has managed that trickiest of feats: she brings the past into the present and reminds us that we’re not yet alone.”—Daegan Miller
- “Laura Marris guides readers through specific ecological histories of absence-making: displacement, climate crisis, and the vanishing of species. This thoroughly researched, passionate, and courageous debut also reminds us that we remain connected by quiet ecosystems of companionship and love.”—Susan Howe
