A Field Guide to the Subterranean: Reclaiming the Deep Earth and our Deepest Selves

A radically inventive excavation of one man’s life and our relationship to the earth by the critically acclaimed author of The Great Floodgates of the Wonderworld Justin Hocking grew up in a part of Colorado where so many things happened beneath the surface—mining exploits, underground nuclear testing just thirty miles from his family’s home, and geothermal activity that heats one of the world’s largest hot spring pools. His homelife, too, was plagued by hidden patterns of abuse and virulent masculinity. A Field Guide to the Subterranean charts the author’s lifelong process of unearthing the past and reclaiming his own identity and connection to the natural world. How might we transform our traumas into deeper care for one another and the landscapes that sustain us? How do we transcend the mythos of the rugged American male so rooted in extraction and exploitation? And how far can we move beyond the self in a memoir? Hocking explores these and other vital questions by combining personal introspection with expansive narratives that examine geology, ecology, gender theory, mining history, labor rights, and even skateboarding.  Abundant with historical research and teeming with birdlife—and ranging in location from remote caves and mountains to secluded surf breaks in Costa Rica—A Field Guide to the Subterranean heralds a boldly original and kaleidoscopic approach to the genres of memoir and nature writing.

About the Author :
JUSTIN HOCKING is the author of The Great Floodgates of the Wonderworld: A Memoir, which won the Oregon Book Award and was a finalist for the PEN Center USA Award for Nonfiction. He served as the Executive Director of the Independent Publishing Resource Center (IPRC) from 2006–2014 and is a recipient of the Willamette Writers Humanitarian Award for his work in writing, publishing, and literary outreach. He teaches creative writing in the MFA and BFA Programs at Portland State University.

Review :
"A dreamy mixture of memoir, natural history, and environmental worries." —Kirkus Reviews "Simultaneously a haunting memoir and an insightful look at society that mimics the fractured sense of a young man finding his way in a confusing world." —Shelf Awareness “Justin Hocking is a wizard who crafts his stories with equal measures of passion, poetry, and erudition. His writing voice makes you want to follow him to the end of the Earth, or into its deepest caverns, so that he can show you all the beautiful and amazing things to be found there.” —Héctor Tobar, author of Our Migrant Souls "A Field Guide to the Subterranean digs deeply down into the earth with powerful questions about who we are and what we've made with our time on the planet. Justin Hocking has created a profound geological journey of the soul, unearthing wisdom about masculinity, the colonization of land and people, and the possibility that we might recover our own hearts if we are willing to be in intimate relationship to the non-human world. A geo love song." —Lidia Yuknavitch, author of Riding the Waves "This book is a marvel of excavation into the stories we tell about land and self. I devoured it in a day, and emerged seeing the world with both more glitter and more shadow, Hocking’s luminous, lyrical voice echoing in my ear. Reading A Field Guide to the Subterranean somehow feels both like going on a round-the-world adventure and curling up on the couch to converse with an old friend." ––Erica Berry, author of Wolfish