Keynote
A vital, intimate inquiry into the astonishing connections between personal and ecological loneliness
Book Title
The Age of Loneliness
Subtitle
Essays
Cover Image
- “An undeniably profound elucidation of losses. . . . [Marris’s] approach counters the colonial, the destructive, the industrial. The Age of Loneliness holds up a reflection whereby we, too, grieve the sometimes invisible losses that we have been bequeathed.”—Anita Felicelli, Los Angeles Times
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
- “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
- “A satisfyingly complex and profound collection.”—Kirkus Reviews
- “Astonishing. . . . With equal parts research and reflection, these essays transpose landscapes of personal and shared loss to show how absence can be an opportunity for connection—both to a place and to the people who define and witness it.”—Elaina Friedman, Chicago Review of Books
“To read Marris is to find oneself not only in the hands of a lonely soul, but also in those of a dogged detective, an astute historian, and a keen forensic anthropologist. Marris brings her capacious mind and its longings to the page. . . . A lyricist of the highest order.”—Lauren Markham, Los Angeles Review of Books
