★ 07/18/2022
Pulitzer winner Proulx (Barkskins) sounds the alarm on the place of Earth’s wetlands in the climate crisis in this stunning account. In an attempt to “understand some of what has disappeared,” Proulx lays out how “the history of wetlands is the history of their destruction.” They’ve largely been drained for agricultural and housing purposes, she writes, and continuing that trend risks calamity, as wetlands’ peat layers contain huge quantities of methane and carbon dioxide that will be released if they’re destroyed. Her dire warnings are leavened with glimpses of potential hope, but the bigger picture is bleak: “The world needs the great swamps we have drained away and the few that still exist but the human impetus to develop and drain continues,” she writes. Proulx’s prose is, as ever, stunning—in bogs, “black pools of still water in the undulating sphagnum moss can seem to be sinkholes into the underworld,” and the Earth’s peatlands “resemble a book of wallpaper samples, each with its own design and character—some little more than water and reeds, others luxuriously diverse landscapes of colors we urban moderns never knew existed.” This resonant ode to a planet in peril is tough to forget. Agent: Liz Darhansoff, Darhansoff & Verrill. (Sept.)
07/01/2022
Pulitzer Prize—winning author and lifelong environmentalist Proulx follows Barkskins, her 2016 novel about lumbering, with this collection of short essays about peatlands. Draining a swamp, readers learn, comes as naturally to humankind as destroying a forest. Beginning with "Discursive Thoughts on Wetlands," Proulx recounts childhood memories of swamps, discusses how wetlands are classified, explains general properties of peat and its crucial role in carbon capture, and more. With the exception of "heroes of the bog"—sphagnum mosses—she does not write extensively about wetlands' flora and fauna. Rather, her focus is on human relationships with wetlands, including a fascinating account of northern Europe's Iron-age bog bodies. Her eye for folly is sharply trained on the long record of ruinous drainage "projects." But while there are many occasions for eco-grief in the book, there are also glimmers of hope: e.g., in the scientists who laid the groundwork to the understanding of these ecosystems and the many restoration projects underway. VERDICT Fans of Proulx's fiction, even those with marginal interest in peatlands, will be intrigued by the snippets of memoir and the habits of a writer's mind that this collection reveals.—Robert Eagan
2022-06-21
The noted novelist turns to environmental history to describe the workings of the world’s wetlands.
“A swamp is a minerotrophic peat-making wetland dominated by trees and shrubs,” writes Proulx in an opening introduction of terms that contrasts swamps with the fens and bogs of her title. All these bodies yield peat, partially decomposed vegetable matter that humans have used for various purposes over the centuries, including fuel and fertilizer. The problem is, in the world-destroying period that Proulx brightly calls the “psychozoic,” with the increased exploitation of wetlands, the greenhouse gases held in peat formations are being released into the atmosphere, a vicious circle of climate change that continues to get worse. “That is the frightening side of peatland’s ability to hold in huge amounts of carbon dioxide: rip or burn the cover off and it is in your face,” writes the author, who ranges widely in this short book. She provides a particularly good compact history of the draining of the fens of eastern England in an act pitting capitalists against working people and turning the vast wetlands, “one of the world’s richest environments,” to farmland—and, of course, releasing greenhouse gases to accompany those generated by the first factories of the Industrial Revolution. A proverbial “pot of gold” awaits those who undertake such conversions. As Proulx writes, the swamp, fens, and bogs of North America, once drained, yielded valuable hardwoods, while the mangrove swamps of Mexico are being “deliberately destroyed…to open an area for the construction of a large Pemex oil refinery.” Remaking the world inevitably impoverishes it and us, as Proulx writes in a crescendo that damns the damming of the Mississippi River, turning it into “a large mud canal” in the bargain, its delta now being swallowed up by rising seawater.
An eloquent, engaged argument for the preservation of a small and damp yet essential part of the planet.
Praise for Fen, Bog & Swamp
“This sobering history of our world’s rich wetlands explains the chilling ecological consequences of their destruction.” —New York Times Book Review
“A fierce declaration of peat’s importance to climate stability and human survival. Proulx does not imagine she can plug the holes in the peatlands, but she is determined to plug the peatland-size hole in our histories.” —The New York Review of Books
“Proulx’s astute and impassioned examinations of all kinds of wetlands, including estuaries, show a new side of the novelist we thought we knew.” —Bethanne Patrick, Los Angeles Times
"An enchanting history of our wetlands... Imbued with the same reverence for nature as Proulx’s fiction, Fen, Bog, and Swamp is both an enchanting work of nature writing and a rousing call to action." —Adrienne Westenfeld, Esquire
“Poetic, wide-ranging, and a display of erudition seldom offered. Whatever opinion or attitude the reader brings to this presentation, it is worth reading for its word art alone!” —David Sutton, San Francisco Book Review
“The Pulitzer Prize-winning Proulx ("The Shipping News," "Barkskins") turns to nonfiction, writing about climate change, the history of wetlands, and what their destruction means for the planet.” —Laurie Hertzel, Minneapolis Star-Tribune
“This recent nonfiction book on a small portion of nature packs a punch.” —Cassie Gutman, Book Riot
“A fascinating, captivating new book by Annie Proulx that reveals the mystery and majesty of fens, bogs, and swamps.” —CJ Lotz, Garden & Gun Magazine
"In Fen, Bog & Swamp, Annie Proulx shows us how to fall in love with wetlands . . . [The book] pays the kind of artistic and emotional attention to swamps that is usually reserved for sunsets and canyons.” —Kiley Bense, Inside Climate News
Gabra Zackman’s intelligent performance of this eloquent audiobook encourages listeners to absorb its powerful message. As Zackman narrates with exquisite timing and thoughtful pacing, listeners learn much from Proulx’s longtime focus on the wetter world. Unlike that of a pure scientist, Proulx’s prose sparkles and is enlivened by stories, quotations, and memories. She shares her curiosity for peat and her love of the literary uses of bogs and swamps but never veers far from explaining the alarming losses to our flora and fauna that are occurring today. Listeners learn about her childhood and ongoing fascination with wetlands, as well as proactive projects aimed at revivifying the damage that has been done through dredging and draining our swampland, marshes, and fens for the purpose of development. A.D.M. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, 2022 Best Audiobook © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
Gabra Zackman’s intelligent performance of this eloquent audiobook encourages listeners to absorb its powerful message. As Zackman narrates with exquisite timing and thoughtful pacing, listeners learn much from Proulx’s longtime focus on the wetter world. Unlike that of a pure scientist, Proulx’s prose sparkles and is enlivened by stories, quotations, and memories. She shares her curiosity for peat and her love of the literary uses of bogs and swamps but never veers far from explaining the alarming losses to our flora and fauna that are occurring today. Listeners learn about her childhood and ongoing fascination with wetlands, as well as proactive projects aimed at revivifying the damage that has been done through dredging and draining our swampland, marshes, and fens for the purpose of development. A.D.M. Winner of AudioFile Earphones Award, 2022 Best Audiobook © AudioFile 2022, Portland, Maine
