The Last American Man

“The finest examination of American masculinity and wilderness since Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild.” —Outside“Wickedly well-written…Without compromising her obvious admiration, Ms. Gilbert presents a warts-and-all portrait of Mr. Conway and a sophisticated understanding of why those warts are only natural…. A vigorous, engaging book.” —The New York Times Book Review“Gilbert artfully taps into this unique life to create a fascinating, deeply thought-out and anthralling narrative.” —Los Angeles Times“A vivid, nuanced portrait of an endlessly complicated man.” —San Francisco Chronicle“The Last American Man relates the riveting story of Conway’s odyssey from a child of affluent parents, to mountain man, to the owner of 1,000 acres of woods and fields in western North Carolina. Gilbert sees in Conway’s life a parable for our time, a way of capturing how our culture is sapping us of all that is vital.” —Chicago Tribune“There are so many reasons to read this book. Read it for the portrait of a man who isn’t divorced from the land below and the sky above. Read it to watch his youthful ambitions fade into tired gasps. Read it to see how Gilbert gets at her subject without ever stabbing him in the back.” —Entertainment Weekly“Conway is a character almost too goofd to believe…In Gilbert, he may have found the perfect writer to tell his story…from Conway’s life, Gilbert takes off on delightful tangents about the nature of manhood, the appeal of utopian communities, the history of the frontier and the lingering myth of the frontiersman. The subject becomes much broader than one man’s life. It’s about what has been lost with progress, and what can be reclaimed.” —The Atlanta Journal-Constitution“An important book, and well-wrought to boot…Gilbert just plain catches him: It is hard to imagine a deeper, more insightful portrait…her book is wise and knowing.” —Men’s Journal

Elizabeth Gilbert is the #1 New York Times bestselling author of Big Magic, Eat Pray Love, and The Signature of All Things, as well as several other internationally bestselling books of fiction and nonfiction. She has been a finalist for the National Book Award, the National Book Critics Circle Award, and the PEN/Hemingway Award. Her latest novel, City of Girls, comes out in June, 2019.

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