I am a sucker for good titles and The Last American Man sounded just up my alley. Why? Who knows. It says on the cover that this book is "the finest examination of American masculinity and wilderness since Jon Krakauer's Into the Wild." Be still my beating heart. I LOVED Into the Wild, so I was sold. I even recommended it to a woman in line behind me at the checkout sans examination. So, I actually wasn't allowed to not like it, not allowed by my own self, of course (my own worst critic: hard to please, and perpetually complaining about something).
Anyway, the book. Eustace Conway is a real live man, still living in Western North Carolina, and is the subject of this book. He is a self-taught naturalist (to put it mildly), a highly driven man and a genius self-promoter. Elizabeth Gilbert makes a thorough examination of both the psychological drive of this unique and intriguing man, and at the same time a thought-provoking look at American male culture. This is not a man-bashing book. It is thoughtful and quite revealing. She does an amazing job of depicting the complexities, inner conflicts and inspirations of Eustace while shedding light on the culture (both external and internal) that have created people like him.
Eustace Conway left home at the age of 14 to live in the wilderness and has really never gone back. He is an expert at blacksmithing, farming, husbandry, and botany; just to name a few. He hiked the Appalachian Trail surviving off the food he scavenged, rode a horse from the Atlantic to the Pacific at mock-speed, built up a camp of acres upon acres of prime western North Carolina mountain property to train future naturalists by an uncanny genius for business, and yet he is handicapped by both his anachronistic beliefs of the "outside" world and his own unbending perfectionism. His mission is to get people to realize that (to paraphase him) we are "sleeping in a box, eating out of a box, driving to our job in a box, working in a box that is called a cubicle, etc"...without ever interacting and enjoying this amazing, beautiful, life-giving planet we live on. Not a shabby message, and truly, Eustace is just the guy to deliver this message. He certainly walks his talk. Elizabeth Gilbert actually knows Eustace, and she interviews his family members, his friends, former lovers and interns from his camp, Turtle Island. Between her personal interactions with him and her interviews with others, she paints a vibrant picture of what makes this man tick.
There are actually at least a couple of people in my life that I have known that remind me of Eustace. However, while there are elements of this pioneer ideal in some of these guys, some serious ingredients are missing. There's the one who has all the big talk of living off the land down pat, yet doesn't have more than a days worth of manual labor under his belt. He would just fall in love with the land in the mountains, the plowing by oxen, the encyclopedic knowledge of flora and fauna...Eustace, if this guy knew him, would be his hero. This same guy would last about 2 nanoseconds on Eustace's team. That's just the thing, the amazing thing is, that there are a lot of people out there (both men and women) who think they are living like Eustace, but I would venture to guess he is actually the only one. Which is pretty impressive but that is also the thing that is quite frustrating to Eustace. He doesn't get why there is NO ONE out there who can just live like him.
There is also the other one I know who just wanted once to hear from their parents that they were proud of them. I don't know if Eustace would have been as dedicated and successful if he had had his dad's approval. In a funny way, it was his own father's lack of approval that created in Eustace the need for unwavering perfectionism. But, it sure stinks if your own parents don't even seem to notice your accomplishments. It is certainly still what is driving Eustace today.
Lots to ponder, and that is what makes it good.
All that said, and boy was that a lot, I am glad I read it, and I would still recommend it to the lady behind me in line at the check out.
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