The Last American Man

Product Information

I'm not sure if the author's approach to this was supposed to be objective reporter (she definitely wasn't that), biased friend, or impassioned disciple. She seemed to be an annoying combination of the second two options. It was hard to take Gilbert's narrative seriously when she was relying heavily on Conway himself for a good portion of the source material. So before I start on my actual review, if you disliked or have an attitude about Eat Pray Love, that's OK, but please do not automatically discount this other Gilbert book. It is COMPLETELY DIFFERENT from EPL. Give it a chance. Here endeth my lecture. Conway went on to go to college where he had a double major in anthropology and English. By this time, Conway was already becoming famous, a man of legend. It was rare for a man to live in the woods because that is what he chose to do, where he belonged. Conway was not a tree hugger or survivalist. The wilderness was simply where Conway wanted and needed to be. Thirty years later, Mrs. Conway is still amused at the absurdity of this concern. "For heaven's sake!" she says. "My children always knew the difference between poisonous snakes out there!"

The way he snaps his fingers in our faces, trying to wake us up to the reality of our lives and to the possibility of change, trying to teach and inspire—and he’s very good at that. Also, it’s always nice to have an old-fashioned adventure hero around the woods. Gilbert met Conway in 1993 in New York City when Conway and his younger brother, Judson, went to visit. Gilbert and Judson were already friends. Gilbert and Eustace would also become lifelong friends, giving the author a valuable insight into this unusual character. I found Eustace Conway to be fascinating and infuriating at the same time, and it seems I'm not alone in either sentiment. Gilbert details numerous interactions people have with Eustace, and everyone from drug dealers in New York City to 5-year-old kids to surly teenagers have been charmed by his magnetism. Women are also drawn to Conway, but his ideas of traditional gender roles have caused some problems in his relationships. For example, one girlfriend freaked out when she learned that Conway wanted more than a dozen children. Another woman finally got fed up with Conway's perfectionism and his demands about hunting and cooking.In the book we have here, Gilbert is apt to state the key lessons of a story - as she sees it - after she is finished telling the story. At best, this is unnecessary, and at worst it is a distraction to find yourself disagreeing with someone's interpretation of events. The idea of biography is to bring a person into relief for the reader by removing as much inter-mediation as possible. Instead, her approach implies that "more is more", that by assaulting the facts with analysis, we can go deeper. In this case, quite the contrary. When Conway was in his early 20s, he decided to live with the most primitive people he could find and flew to Guatemala. These types of experiences fulfilled Conway in a way no others could. About: Eustace Conway". Turtle Island Preserve. Archived from the original on May 4, 2019 . Retrieved July 24, 2018. 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. Conway is a character almost too goofd to believe…In Gilbert, he may have found the perfect writer to tell his story…from Conway’s life, Gilbert takes off on delightful tangents about the nature of manhood, the appeal of utopian communities, the history of the frontier and the lingering myth of the frontiersman. The subject becomes much broader than one man’s life. It’s about what has been lost with progress, and what can be reclaimed.”— The Atlanta Journal-Constitution

The other matrons in the neighborhood were certainly horrified by Mrs. Conway's child-rearing techniques. Hysterical, they'd call her up on the phone and shriek, "You can't let your babies play in those woods! There are poisonous snakes out there!" Biographies, regardless auto or otherwise, should give us a glimpse into the person's life. The flavor of the book should represent the person being written about, not the author, can be funny, insightful and give us reasons to either like the person we're reading about, or at least give us to wonder about the person. This book does not do either. Favorite Quote: Life goes on, after all, and one must always seek the lesson even through the sorrow.Eustace Conway is inspirational, radical, tough, highly skilled, committed, full of heart, forward-thinking. Eustace is portrayed as being tyrannical, unforgiving, and consistently disappointed by those around him. What was it like to write about such a person?

Eustace is still looking for a wife – the woman who will allow him to fulfill his vision of a a utopian community. Do you think he’ll ever find her? Does she even exist?

I can say that most of this book was hard to read because it read like fan-girl Gilbert had gotten her dream assignment of writing about one of her personal heroes. The gushiness and obvious high esteem that the author held for Conway made it difficult to believe that I was reading about the real man (rather than the idealicized version). There was a particular passage in the book that described a birthday card to Conway from his dad. It was overly sappy and dramatic and seemed like the author was manufacturing something more meaningful than the actual occurrence. There was another such over-done bit of drama near the very end when Conway was facing a deer or elk and started shouting feelings of love towards the creature. So what? I found this to be more enjoyable than Gilbert's Eat, Pray, Love, with more captivating subject material and an improved writing style. Often times her snark is hilarious and the pacing was consistent. My only complaint was the profanity, particularly her use of G-damn. I am generally not offended by profanity in books, but over 50% of the time Gilbert utilized it (which was quite often), it felt stilted and gratuitous. From the beginning of the book to the end this was continuously noticed, which only made it more annoying because it repeatedly broke the flow of the book, making for a jarring reading experience.

Judson is an actor," Eustace said. "He's got a glamour streak in him. That's his style, and I think it's wonderful." The Last American Man is a biography about Eustace Conway, but it's much more than that because Gilbert also covers gender studies and explores the origins of masculinity in America. What does it mean to be a man in our society? What do we expect from men? I thought this discussion was just as important and interesting as the stories about Conway. My personal opinion is that America suffers from a "wussification" of our male youth, and I really enjoyed the frequent exploration of how children today are vastly different from recent generations and the possible causes for that shift. " Not many people can subdue their egos. The talent for submission is especially hard for modern American kids, who are raised in a culture that has taught them from infancy that their every desire is vital and sacred." Gilbert emphasizes that Conway is not a bleeding-heart tree hugger, nor a true survivalist: the wilderness is simply where he is comfortable, and where he feels he needs to be. She also notes another side to his character. Though Conway’s lifestyle is an expression of his dissatisfaction with the American Dream, he is still enmeshed in capitalism and the pursuit of money. He has bought land to set up a wilderness preserve, hoping someday to establish a utopian, off-the-grid community. But it takes money, work, and good business sense to make that happen. A former girlfriend describes Conway as someone “obsessed” with making money and buying land, someone who was always too busy traveling to spend time with her.Gilbert refers to Eustace Conway as the last American man. Although Conway was raised in Gastonia, North Carolina, he chose to make his life in the woods. Conway's the first real foray into a life of a naturalist came when he was seven years old. By the time Conway was 12 he began to stay in the woods alone, living off the land. When Conway was 17 he moved out of the family home and lived in the woods in a teepee, surviving solely off the land and his own wilderness survival abilities. You may recognize the name Elizabeth Gilbert from her bestselling memoir Eat Pray Love. The problem with a massive success like EPL is that people seem to have pigeonholed Gilbert into only one genre, when the truth — as my fellow readers already know — is that good writers are artists and can create beautiful works in many styles and genres. Gilbert is such an artist. Now the book review- Oh Gilbert. Agh. You are just another author in a line of authors that frustrated me in 2015. You are capable of such beautiful sentiment, real introspection, and wonderful writing. Like the quote below which is one of my favorite passages: 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? He evolves before our eyes. He improves and expands and improves and expands because he is so clever and so resourceful that he cannot help himself. He is unstoppable. And we are also unstoppable. We have always been unstoppable on this continent.