The Territory Around Us

In his literary journalism, critic, novelist, and memoirist Robert J. Begiebing offers readers a rare view of American authors at transformative moments in their careers. Historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, poets Sydney Lea and Wesley McNair, and novelists Merle Drown and Norman Mailer are among the authors profiled and reviewed. And readers will discover connections between the literary and the political essays. Begiebing’s provocative political commentary addresses issues as significant to us today as they were at the time of original periodical publication: the nature of American conservatism, the political economy of our budgetary priorities, and the looming global ecological crisis.

In his literary journalism, critic, novelist, and memoirist Robert J. Begiebing offers readers a rare view of American authors at transformative moments in their careers. Historian Laurel Thatcher Ulrich, poets Sydney Lea and Wesley McNair, and novelists Merle Drown and Norman Mailer are among the authors profiled and reviewed. And readers will discover connections between the literary and the political essays. Begiebing’s provocative political commentary addresses issues as significant to us today as they were at the time of original periodical publication: the nature of American conservatism, the political economy of our budgetary priorities, and the looming global ecological crisis. This is a rich, uncommon collection of three decades of work by an entertaining and independent writer.

Robert J. Begiebing, Professor of English Emeritus at Southern New Hampshire University, is the author of many articles and stories, a play, and nine books, including two books of criticism, an historical anthology of nature writing, a New England trilogy of novels spanning 1648-1850, and The Turner Erotica (2013), a novel based on the life and work of British painter J.M.W. Turner. His most recent book is a memoir set in the 1950s, entitled A Berkshire Boyhood: Confessions and Reflections of a Baby Boomer (2014).