|
|
|
|
|
|
In Suspect Terrain is the second book in a series on geology and geologists, presenting a cross section of North America along the fortieth parallel, and gathering under the overall title Annals of the Former World. The first and third books in the series are Basin and Range and Rising from the Plains. John McPhee is our best and liveliest writer about the earth and earth sciences. He overspreads his territory like an ice sheet, and yet his touch is light. He can distribute silt and sand as deftly as he wears down mountains. --Wallace Stegner, Los Angeles Times Book Review
|
|
Copyright ©2000
- 2003 Farrar, Straus
& Giroux |
In Suspect Terrain 
From the outwash
plains of Brooklyn to Indiana's drifted diamonds and gold, John McPhee's In Suspect
Terrain is a narrative of the earth, told in four sections of equal length, each in a
different way reflecting the three others--a biography; a set piece about a fragment of
Appalachian landscape in illuminating counterpoint to the human history there; a modern
collision of ideas about the origins of the mountain range; and, in contrast, a
century-old collision of ideas about the existence of the Ice Age. The central figure is
Anita Harris, an internationally celebrated geologist who went into her profession to get
out of a Brooklyn ghetto. The unifying theme is plate tectonics--here concentrating on the
acceptance that all aspects of the theory do not universally enjoy. As such, In Suspect
Terrain is a report from the rough spots at the front edge of a science.