The Age of Loneliness: Essays

Summary

How do we add to archives of ecological memory? How can we notice and document what’s missing in the landscapes closest to us? In her debut essay collection, Laura Marris reframes environmental loss by setting aside the catastrophic framework of the Anthropocene in favor of that of the Eremocene, the age of loneliness, which is marked by the dramatic thinning of wildlife populations and by isolation between and among species. And yet these essays are filled with wonder and vitality, immersing readers in the strange landscapes of the Eremocene, and in the search for home among the human and more-than-human.

Vivid, keenly observed, and driven by a lively intelligence and lyrical voice, The Age of Loneliness is an examination of the dangers of loneliness, the surprising histories of ecological loss, and the ways that community science—which relies on the embodied evidence of “ground truth”—can help us recognize, and maybe even recover, what we’ve learned to live without.

“The Age of Loneliness is a stunning book that will become a close friend, and like all good friends, it will change the shape of our world. Laura Marris has managed that trickiest of feats: she brings the past into the present and reminds us that we’re not yet alone. With prose that calls to mind the best in the tradition of nature writing, but with a voice which is also clearly, distinctly its own, Marris is the writer for our time.”—Daegan Miller