An environmentalist writer's lifelong struggle with her evangelical roots. Given her career of writing passionately about nature and her ecological activism, one might think that Peterson (Animal Heart, 2004, etc.) was reared in a family of liberal environmentalists. In fact, her household was just the opposite: fundamentalist, Southern Baptist, and evangelical to the core. She began to doubt her place in God's Christian army from a young age, when her pensive questions about animals' souls and the afterlife got her kicked out of Sunday School and regularly rebuked at the family dinner table. She could never come to terms with the way that Christian fundamentalists, who considered themselves "in this world but not of it," could fixate on a future in heaven while disregarding the beauty and fragility here on earth. This dangerous backwardness was most appalling in her father, who eventually headed of the U.S. Forestry Service. It wasn't until well after college, newly recovered from a harrowing stint as an editorial staffer at the New Yorker, that Peterson learned to hold her own with her boisterous, highly conservative relatives. After years spent on the West Coast among liberals supposedly more like herself, Peterson began to recognize parallels between the rigid fundamentalism of End Times evangelists and the doomsday environmentalist camp. Both dwelled on the negative and used fear of annihilation as their main conversion tactic, and neither could satisfy her longing for a spiritual home in the natural world. By keeping the thread of her theme running consistently throughout the book, the author offers a selective memoir that blends her unique autobiography with compassionate andlevelheaded observations about family, food, religion, life and our relationships with living things. Whether rabble-rousing at Baptist summer camp or guarding seal pups by the Salish Sea, Peterson has a gift for describing her life's many adventures with disarming understatement and narrative poise. Author tour to Seattle and Portland, Ore. Agent: Sarah Jane Freymann/Sarah Jane Freymann Literary Agency
City Arts Seattle, February 2010
“Peterson’s I Want to Be Left Behind is a tonic, the least acridly dogmatic of the new God books, pro or con...Her book has humor, which the divine debate could use more of. Instead of another volley in the God wars, her book can be seen as a kind of peace offering. She makes you think maybe everybody is in more harmony than they think.”
Los Angeles Times, 1/31/10
“It is a rich and often lovely life—full of humor and Peterson’s own unique brand of faith.”
Cleveland Plain Dealer, 1/31/10
“Lovely, irreverent humor…Her journey is fascinating, and when she writes about spiritual revelation through nature, she’s captivating...We are left with a good feeling: it is possible to have meaningful discussions with people we don’t agree with and still love them."
Huffington Post, 2/10/10
“With this luminous, surprising memoir, Brenda Peterson completes her own assignment, giving us a story where no one is killed, dismissed, or left behind, where empathy is not only possible but imperative, where rapture can be ours here and now.”
Hudson Valley News, 2/3/10
“A thought-provoking, beautifully written and challenging memoir.”
North Kitsap Sun, 2/14/10
“[A] comedic spiritual memoir.”
HistoryWire.com, 3/8/10
“In a memoir that is truly sui generis, veteran author Brenda Peterson humorously recounts the dynamic tension between her nature-loving parents and her Southern Baptist relatives… [A] big hearted book... Peterson’s memoir is more even-handed than Pollyanish, as she critiques both evangelicalism and holier-than-thou environmentalism. Through it all, the author expresses her deep love and appreciation for nature.
Christian Science Monitor, 3/15/10
“Peterson wraps her story in down-home warmth and a quick wit…Peterson’s stories are gems.”
Miami Herald, 3/21/10
“[An] outstanding memoir…[Peterson’s] vivid imagination combined with a lilting writing style make the book a pleasure to read.”
Spirituality and Practice website, 3/22/10
“[A] well-written and consistently compelling spiritual memoir.”
Seattle Times, 2/14/10
“[A] thoughtful, witty meditation…Peterson has distilled her life experiences to create the sense of a woman on an idiosyncratic spiritual journey.”
Cleveland Plain Dealer, 2/18/10
“Lovely, irreverent humor…[Peterson’s] journey is fascinating, and when she writes about spiritual revelation through nature, she’s captivating.”
Harborwalk Books, in the Columbus Dispatch, 2/28/10
“At once precocious and thoughtful, [Peterson] weaves her way through the contradictions of growing up to find her own spiritual place in the world. ‘Glowing’ would not be too strong of an adjective for this book!”
The Center of Progressive Christianity website, 3/9/10
“Talk of the rapture…surrounds Peterson, and she engages this conversation with delicacy, humor, frustration, and, at times, a begrudging respect, in this memoir about growing up among Southern Baptists and not quite fitting in.”
Booklist, 12/1/09
“[An] unusually affecting and radiant spiritual memoir… Peterson seeks a meeting of church and earth in this witty, enrapturing account of a spiritual journey of great relevance to us all.”
Kirkus Reviews, 12/1/09
“The author offers a selective memoir that blends her unique autobiography with compassionate and levelheaded observations about family, food, religion, life and our relationships with living things…Peterson has a gift for describing her life’s many adventures with disarming understatement and narrative poise.”
Library Journal, 11/5/09
“This tender, lyrical account of turning away from her religious roots starts with the painful realization that there is no place in a fundamentalist heaven for her beloved animals and the growing sense that her love of the natural world is antithetical to those eagerly anticipating the Rapture. Charting her evolution into an environmental writer of fiction and nonfiction, Peterson always seeks common ground, eschewing fundamentalism of all kinds, whether religious or environmental.”
Publishers Weekly, 1/11/10
“Talk of the rapture surrounds Peterson, and she engages this conversation with delicacy, humor, frustration, and, at times, a begrudging respect, in this memoir.
