Drifting: Two Weeks on the Hudson

This candid account of the author's two-week canoe trip down the Hudson River offers an introspective and humorous look at both the river and Recession-Era America. New to fatherhood and fresh from ten years in an Alaskan village, Mike Freeman sets out to relearn his country, and realizes it's in a far greater midlife crisis than he could ever be. With an eye on the Hudson's past, he addresses America's present anxieties--from race, gender, and marriage to energy, labor, and warfare--with empathy and honesty, acknowledging the difficulties surrounding each issue without succumbing to pessimism or ideology.

From the river's headwaters in the Adirondacks, Freeman follows the Hudson south through America's first industrial ghost towns, where ruin begs for rebirth. Next is the Hudson Valley and the river's 153-mile estuary, with its once-teeming fisheries. Here, agriculture is redefining itself, while at West Point, officer candidates train for America's murky modern wars. The Hudson Highlands, too, are prominent, the place where Americans first wed God to nature, and where the mountains remain a potent place to mull that bond. From there it's on to Manhattan, with its skyline that symbolizes the world's financial might as well as its startling fragility.

As controversial as it is comforting, Freeman's narrative makes us think in hard ways about America as the country itself drifts toward an uncertain future. But throughout, of course, is the magnificent Hudson, whose resilient beauty speaks well both to nature's toughness and America's greatest strength--the ability to redirect and change course when necessary.

Author: Mike Freeman
Publisher: Excelsior Editions/State University of New Yo
Published: 09/01/2011
Pages: 266
Binding Type: Hardcover
Weight: 1.05lbs
Size: 8.50h x 5.70w x 0.80d
ISBN: 9781438439457


Review Citation(s):
Reference and Research Bk News 10/01/2011 pg. 47

About the Author
Mike Freeman is a freelance writer and editor. From 1998 to 2008 he was a fisheries assistant at the Alaska Department of Fish and Game, and has canoed thousands of miles in southeast Alaska. His essays have appeared in the Massachusetts Review; South Dakota Review; the LBJ: Avian Life, Literary Arts; Connecticut Review; and Gray's Sporting Journal. He lives in Newport, Rhode Island.


This title is only available via back order