The Last American Man

The Last American Man

by ElizabethGilbert (Author)

Synopsis

At the age of seventeen, Eustace Conway ditched the comforts of his suburban existence to escape to the wild. Away from the crushing disapproval of his father, he lived alone in a teepee in the mountains. Everything he needed he built, grew or killed. He made his clothes from deer he killed and skinned before using their sinew as sewing thread. But he didn't stop there. In the years that followed, he stopped at nothing in pursuit of bigger, bolder challenges. He travelled the Mississippi in a handmade wooden canoe; he walked the two-thousand-mile Appalachian Trail; he hiked across the German Alps in trainers; he scaled cliffs in New Zealand. One Christmas, he finished dinner with his family and promptly upped and left - to ride his horse across America. From South Carolina to the Pacific, with his little brother in tow, they dodged cars on the highways, ate road kill and slept on the hard ground. Now, more than twenty years on, Eustace is still in the mountains, residing in a thousand-acre forest where he teaches survival skills and attempts to instil in people a deeper appreciation of nature. But over time he has had to reconcile his ambitious dreams with the sobering realities of modernity. Told with Elizabeth Gilbert's trademark wit and spirit, this is a fascinating, intimate portrait of an endlessly complicated man: a visionary, a narcissist, a brilliant but flawed modern hero. The Last American Man is an unforgettable adventure story of an irrepressible life lived to the extreme. The Last American Man is a New York Times Notable Book and National Book Critics Circle Award Finalist.

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More Information

Format: Hardcover
Pages: 288
Edition: UK First Edition
Publisher: Bloomsbury Publishing PLC
Published: 05 Jan 2009

ISBN 10: 0747598290
ISBN 13: 9780747598299
Book Overview: Eat, Pray, Love has sold five million copies in the US and over 35,000 copies in the UK (BookScan). For fans of the films Into The Wild and Grizzly Man, and the books The Mosquito Coast by Paul Theroux, The Call of the Wild by Jack London and All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy. Gilbert's UK fans will love this previously unpublished book as well as the new paperback editions of Gilbert's fiction, Pilgrims and Stern Men, that Bloomsbury will publish in March.

Media Reviews
'It is almost impossible not to fall under the spell of Eustace Conway his accomplishments, his joy and vigor, seem almost miraculous' New York Times Review of Books 'A vigorous, engaging book Elizabeth Gilbert presents a warts-and-all portrait of Mr. Conway and a sophisticated understanding of why those warts are only natural' The New York Times 'A vivid, nuanced portrait of an endlessly complicated man' San Francisco Chronicle 'Gilbert artfully taps into this unique life to create a fascinating, deeply-thought-out and enthralling narrative' Los Angeles Times
Author Bio
Elizabeth Gilbert is the author of a short story collection, Pilgrims (a finalist for the Pen/Hemingway Award), a novel, Stern Men and a book of non fiction, The Last American Man (nominated for the National Book Award and a New York Times Notable Book for 2002). She is a writer-at-large for American GQ where she has received two National Magazine Award nominations for feature writing. Her most recent book, Eat, Pray, Love is an international bestseller. Elizabeth Gilbert lives in Philadelphia.