*Named a Best Book of the Year by The New Yorker and Literary Hub!* A Finalist for the 2022 NBCC Awards in Nonfiction, the 2023 Phillip D. Reed Environmental Writing Award, and the NEIBA 2023 New England Book Award*
From Pulitzer Prize winner Annie Proulx, this riveting deep dive into the history of our wetlands and what their systematic destruction means for the planet âis both an enchanting work of nature writing and a rousing call to actionâ (Esquire).
âI learned something newâand found something amazingâon every page.â âAnthony Doerr, author of All the Light We Cannot See and Cloud Cuckoo Land
A lifelong acolyte of the natural world, Annie Proulx brings her witness and research to the subject of wetlands and the vitally important role they play in preserving the environmentâby storing the carbon emissions that accelerate climate change. Fens, bogs, swamps, and marine estuaries are crucial to the earthâs survival, and in four illuminating parts, Proulx documents their systemic destruction in pursuit of profit.
In a vivid and revelatory journey through history, Proulx describes the fens of 16th-century England, Canadaâs Hudson Bay lowlands, Russiaâs Great Vasyugan Mire, and Americaâs Okeefenokee National Wildlife Refuge. She introduces the early explorers who launched the destruction of the Amazon rainforest, and writes of the diseases spawned in the wetlandsâthe Ague, malaria, Marsh Fever.
A sobering look at the degradation of wetlands over centuries and the serious ecological consequences, this is âan unforgettable and unflinching tour of past and present, fixed on a subject that could not be more importantâ (Bill McKibben).
âA stark but beautifully written Silent Springâstyle warning from one of our greatest novelists.â âThe Christian Science Monitor