The Last American Man

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He set out to change the world but, certainly by the end of this book, he seemed to have lost his way. Perhaps that's the frustration of young idealism giving way to the realities of life. Perhaps something darker.

But I'm getting ahead of myself. Let me begin at the beginning and share the marvelous opening paragraph: He becomes so morose over stuff like this. He learned recently that developers on the other side of his mountain are planning to build a golf course that would drain directly into the cleanest brook left in the area. What's more, the developers have a helicopter, which they fly right over his home nearly every day. What can Turtle Island mean with a helicopter overhead? What's the point of it then? It almost makes him want to give up. Maybe, he thinks, he should forget about America altogether. "Maybe America isn't ready for my ideas," he says. Then he begins to dream about moving to New Zealand. It's a recurring dream of his. He remembers the isolation there, and he imagines finding a truly private life for himself.Every time I drive by my local high school and see a metrosexual boy in his skinny jeans with his emo hair, I thank God that I narrowly missed that dating pool selection. Masculinity is not exactly what it used to be, is it?

In the end, if the 'over zealous' drooling of Elizabeth Gilbert over her subject (she comes off as someone who is simply writing a 'fan book', and that is what this book really accomplishes), doesn't give you a coma saccharine, his endless berating of everyone (literally) and objectifying his potential lovers may well leave you wondering, what are we celebrating here? The best description of abuse: demanding services of others, carping until they meet your demands, with an inability to forgive self or others, and the need to settle 'things' by either force or making emotional or verbal putdowns that make other's feel worthless. Eustace Conway is no suburban hippie. He's a stubborn, forceful man who doesn't believe in other people. He believes only in himself. He has no time for the ideas of other because he knows his own are all correct. He crushes most of the people he meets. Kills their spirit and along with it his own. The finest examination of American masculinity and wilderness since Jon Krakauer’s Into the Wild.”— Outside Elizabeth Gilbert’s nonfiction book The Last American Man (2002) tells the story of Eustace Conway. Gilbert explores Conway’s unusual choice to live off the land and apart from modern, materialistic society. More than that, she uses his story to look at the larger picture of what it is to be a man in contemporary American society. Gilbert is a writer and journalist famous for works of fiction and nonfiction, including Eat, Pray, Love and The Signature of All Things.He is also, as it turns out, a pretty savvy businessman. Conway's theory, according to Gilbert, is that "the only way modern America can begin to reverse its inherent corruption and greed and malaise is by feeling the rapture that comes from face-to-face encounters with ... 'the high art and godliness of nature'". Getting up close and personal with nature takes cash, however, and it's only through sheer hard work and a lot of wheeling and dealing that Conway managed to buy up tracts of land in North Carolina and set up his extraordinary frontier community (turtleislandpreserve.com).