The Last American Man

Product Information

Eustace is portrayed as being tyrannical, unforgiving, and consistently disappointed by those around him. What was it like to write about such a person? In De Laatste Man vertelt ze het verhaal van Eustace Conway. Een mountain man (die de Appalachian trail wandelt, op een paard America doorkruist en in een zelfgemaakte kano door Alaska vaart) met een missie, die vanaf z’n zeventiende in een tipi in de Appalachen woont en daar zelfvoorzienend leeft. De man droomt van een reformatie en is ervan overtuigd die te kunnen bewerkstelligen. Hij wil Amerika wakker schudden en reformeren. Niet meer onbewust en doods leven, maar juist dicht bij de natuur en dus ook dicht bij jezelf. Daarom creëerde hij Turtle Island een natuurreservaat waar hij kinderen en volwassenen uitnodigt om dat leven in de natuur te ontdekken, eigen te maken en vooral te omarmen.

The other matrons in the neighborhood were certainly horrified by Mrs. Conway's child-rearing techniques. Hysterical, they'd call her up on the phone and shriek, "You can't let your babies play in those woods! There are poisonous snakes out there!"Conway has the life he deserves. Surrounded by beauty he can't appreciate, abandoned by people he can't understand. He's still not married, still doesn't have kids. If that doesn't tell him something, he's not listening. In the first chapter of The Last American Man you paint a very vivid picture of Eustace Conway on the streets of New York City. Can you talk a bit about this first meeting and your first impressions of the so-called “Last American Man.” The beauty of Elizabeth Gilbert's portrait of Eustace is that she comes from a position of knowing him personally; her love for him is obvious. The depth of her narrative comes from her willingness to explore problematic nuances, to effectively look past Conway's brilliance and see that he is a man, after all, made of clay like the rest of we mere mortals. This book is so rich and comp Gilbert refers to Eustace Conway as the last American man. Although Conway was raised in Gastonia, North Carolina, he chose to make his life in the woods. Conway's the first real foray into a life of a naturalist came when he was seven years old. By the time Conway was 12 he began to stay in the woods alone, living off the land. When Conway was 17 he moved out of the family home and lived in the woods in a teepee, surviving solely off the land and his own wilderness survival abilities.

I found Eustace Conway to be fascinating and infuriating at the same time, and it seems I'm not alone in either sentiment. Gilbert details numerous interactions people have with Eustace, and everyone from drug dealers in New York City to 5-year-old kids to surly teenagers have been charmed by his magnetism. Women are also drawn to Conway, but his ideas of traditional gender roles have caused some problems in his relationships. For example, one girlfriend freaked out when she learned that Conway wanted more than a dozen children. Another woman finally got fed up with Conway's perfectionism and his demands about hunting and cooking. North Carolina General Assembly - Last Action on Bills with Actions in 2013". Archived from the original on October 13, 2017 . Retrieved July 18, 2013. I have intended to read this book for years and am so glad I finally took the time to do so. After hearing Eustace Conway on the radio some time ago (This American Life) and seeing him recently on television (Mountain Men on History Channel), I was primed to know more. Gilbert artfully taps into this unique life to create a fascinating, deeply thought-out and anthralling narrative.”— Los Angeles Times And then there is the issue of what it means to be a "real man." Gilbert weaves thoughtful passages about masculinity throughout the book:

But there’s another possible side to this. Maybe he’s just become a grumpy old man and dwells too much on the negative experiences he’s had with people who he has attempted to teach his way of life to (I find it hard to believe he has encountered that many idiots without a large number of good workers/environmentalists to balance it out)…. or maybe that’s just the way Elizabeth Gilbert writes it. I can’t say I was fond of her writing at all. It was very informal. I don’t care how close she is to Conway’s family, how hot she thinks his brother is, or how many romantic relationships Conway has had (which got rather redundant and immature – another example of Conway’s bad attitude and perhaps Gilbert’s poor choice of subject matter). And it seemed to me that she was out of place when expressing Conway’s opinions and feeling for him without quoting him. She may be a friend of his, but she didn’t initially approach this biography as a friend’s account of Conway’s life, but as an author out to find the truth about Conway’s life. Therefore I don’t think her assumptions were fitting. Eustace is quite the unique character which is a large part of why this was such an interesting read. At times he is incredibly kind and a huge romantic, which conflicts with his superego and extreme, uncompromising need for control. She instead is writing about a place in time, about changing expectations, about America’s changing landscape and lifestyle, about the disconnect between what used to be and what is, about people’s fantasy’s with the wilderness and with celebrities and about realities about both. Eustace Robinson Conway IV (born September 15, 1961) is an American naturalist and the subject of the book The Last American Man by Elizabeth Gilbert. He has also been the subject of Adventures in the Simple Life by Sarah Vowell on the weekly radio show This American Life with Ira Glass. He is the owner of the 1,000-acre (4.0km 2) Turtle Island Preserve in Boone, North Carolina. He is one of the featured personalities on the History channel show Mountain Men. I found this to be more enjoyable than Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love, with more captivating subject material and an improved writing style. Often times her snark is hilarious and the pacing was consistent. My only complaint was the profanity, particularly her use of G-damn. I am generally not offended by profanity in books, but over 50% of the time Gilbert utilized it (which was quite often), it felt stilted and gratuitous. From the beginning of the book to the end this was continuously noticed, which only made it more annoying because it repeatedly broke the flow of the book, making for a jarring reading experience.

One of the things I like about Gilbert is that she became famous for Eat Pray Love, which is considered by some to be a feminist work, and yet Last American Man, which she wrote before she took that famous trip to Italy, India and Indonesia, is all about masculinity. Virginia Woolf once said that writers must be androgynous, and Gilbert has certainly accomplished that. (For the record, she is also an accomplished novelist and has written a book of short stories.)This book is so rich and complex and well-written that I could probably max out my review limit by including dozens of quotes and passages. There are incredible sections on Conway's survival skills, on his difficult relationship with his father, on his lectures that he gives to schools, and on the land he bought to preserve in North Carolina, which he named Turtle Island. But I shall resist the urge to overwhelm you with text and share just one final quote from the Epilogue:

I rarely read books about people unless it is someone I greatly admire. My brother gave me this book and suggested I read it, with the caveat that he had not read it yet but wanted to – so I gave it a shot.He needs a woman who can work right up to the day her baby is born," Nathan embellished. "And who can start again immediately the next day."