Nathaniel Rich and Chris Jennings Discuss George R. Stewart’s STORM

George R. Stewart’s pioneering and prescient writings about humans and the ecosystem are reaching out to a new generation of writers.

Nathaniel Rich  is the author of several well-received books.  He writes non-fiction books and essays about contemporary environmental issues, like Second Nature and Losing Earth; an intriguing novel set in New Orleans a century ago, King Zeno; the novel Odds Against Tomorrow,  about the possibilities both good and bad of the immediate future.  See the complete list here. ( He’s also written a book I’m anxious to get my hands on:  San Francisco Noir, a description of more than 40 noir films set in San Francisco and  their settings.)

Rich has written a fine new Introduction to the recent New York Review of Books Press edition of Stewart’s pioneering ecological novel Storm.  He closes with a reference to the storm that destroyed the George R. Stewart Trail at Thornton State Beach – a fitting end to the story of GRS and that place on Earth once described as “of small compass and unusual value.”

Rich’s friend, colleague, and fellow writer, Chris Jennings, has published a history of those American utopian communities that hoped to change society for the better:  Paradise Now:  The Story of American Utopianism.   One of the interesting ideas Jennings explores in the is how the Utopians’ ideas were affected by where they lived  – not unlike Stewart’s idea that “the land is a character in the work.” 

Rich and Jennings recently joined in a web conversation to discuss Stewart’s Storm from the environmentalist viewpoint.  The discussion was sponsored by an excellent local independent bookstore, Point Reyes Books – which as the store’s name indicates is located in the small town of Point Reyes Station near magnificent Point Reyes National Seashore.

Their excellent discussion, a thorough and wide-ranging description and consideration of the book, lasted for about an hour.  I was especially happy to note how the novel and the ideas of Stewart’s it contains had come almost as a revelation to Rich and Jennings, members of a new generation of  ecosystem warriors.  The book was teaching them – as it taught so many of us in the mid-twentieth century.

Watch the discussion here.  (If you haven’t yet read the book please be aware that there are a few spoilers in the talk.)

Afterwards, I suggest that you read or re-read Stewart’s page-turner of a novel, which is a mind-enriching, pioneering book.  It is the first ecological novel and the book from which we get the practice of naming storms.  For those of you who live in the central swath of California where the storm takes place, it will help you prepare mentally for the storms sure to come this winter. If you live elsewhere, the novel’s global vision will teach you how weather ties all of us together, and ties everything in the ecosystem into one web of life, land, air and water.

 

If you decide to purchase (the reasonably priced) Storm or one of the books by the speakers you may want to do so through Point Reyes Books, as a thanks for sponsoring the talk.

New Edition of EARTH ABIDES will be released on October 13th

The new “glorious” paperback edition of Earth Abides will be released in mid-October.  It can be pre-ordered now  through your local, friendly, independent bookseller via BOOKSHOP  or via Amazon.  

This new printing is from Mariner Books (A division of Houghton Mifflin).   It has, I think, the best cover for the book since the cover on the first edition in 1949:

Mariner Press Printing 2020

Cover of the  First Edition, Random House, 1949

It also includes an Introduction by distinguished author Kim Stanley Robinson.   He offers a brief but focused biography of Stewart; then describes the novel in terms of its place in similar literature and in Stewart’s fine body of work.  He also makes the obvious and timely comparison between the events of Stewart’s novel and the current pandemic – a reminder that this is the best of times to read Stewart’s encouraging novel. 

Even if you already own a copy, this edition is worth buying for Robinson’s excellent Introduction. Or to read or re-read Stewart’s fine novel, to see how the amazing thinker and writer George R. Stewart imagined our time, 71 years ago, and wrote a novel to help us deal with it. 

The Chicago Tribune publishes its tribute to George R. Stewart

“George R. Stewart: Unrestrained by literary borders,” Patrick T. Reardon’s fine tribute to George R. Stewart, was published yesterday in The Chicago Tribune‘s literary magazine, Printers Row Journal.    Editorial Assistant Andreea Ciulac was kind enough to send the link. (The Journal is published online only.)

The essay gives a good introduction to Stewart’s vast literary output.  As Reardon says, GRS wrote in many fields – history, geography, environmentalism, civil rights, and fiction – creating several new types of literature along the way.

Reardon highlights several of Stewart’s books – Earth Abides, Names On The Land, Pickett’s Charge, Storm, Ordeal By Hunger, and others.  He quotes from the books to show Stewart’s style in each type of work, thus giving readers a sense of how the books read.

The portrait Andreea Ciulac chose for the article was taken in 1938, probably for East of the Giants.  It shows Stewart as the distinguished scholar and author he was – in a time when the publication of a book by a company like Random House meant honor and a huge readership. (Thanks to Anna Evenson for permitting use of the photo.)

To see that portrait with its fine accompanying article in The Chicago Tribune is to feel immensely satisfied – this is the kind of honorable place where GRS belongs.  In the literary magazine of one of the great newspapers of the country.

The article should encourage a new readership for Stewart’s work.  As Andreea Ciulac writes,  “… I think the article makes you jump from your seat and go read something written by GRS!”  (Andreea is a pleasure to work with – cheerful, enthusiastic, efficient, a friend of literature, and now, we hope, of GRS.  Printers Row Journal is lucky to have her on the staff.)

By the way – I wrote in the last post that you can subscribe to the Printers Row Journal; but no longer.  On the other hand, you CAN subscribe online to The Chicago Tribune, and receive the Journal as part of the subscription, for a reasonable price.  I was impressed with the Journal,  and have subscribed for a few months to try The Tribune and the Journal.