The Unsettlers

September 5, 2016
Sundeen (The Man Who Quit Money) embarks on a cross-country journey to find others invested in living a simpler life, and to discover how he and his wife, Cedar, can get closer to that experience. Sundeen visits three couples: Ethan and Sarah in La Plata, Mo.; Greg and Olivia in Detroit; and Steve and Luci in Victor, Mont. All of them have made a serious commitment to sustainable living; some live without electricity, and others grow food for themselves and their neighbors. The book suffers from a tone that veers into preachiness, and though Sundeen raises questions of privilege, his treatment of it is superficial. In Detroit, the book is at its most engaging. The work that Greg and Olivia put into their farm is arduous, but the way they talk about their work is less self-righteous than the other couples. Sundeen does ask important questions about technology, the economy, and the moral implications of being both critic and participant in our society. Still, readers will be left wondering what large-scale simple living might look like. Agent: Richard Abate, 3 Arts Entertainment.

November 1, 2016
Bright update on the perennial back-to-the-land movement.In this engaging, honest, and deeply personal account, Outside correspondent Sundeen (The Man Who Quit Money, 2012, etc.) tells the stories of three American families who have pursued alternative ways of living. Eschewing conveniences, materialism, and "the compromises of contemporary life," each has joined a movement consisting of "local food and urban farms, bike coops and time banks and tool libraries, permaculture and guerrilla gardening, homebirthing and homeschooling and home cooking." In researching their adventures in homesteading, Sundeen hoped to learn for himself how to lead a good life. Though his personal reflections meander, sometimes annoyingly, his superb reporting produces revealing portraits of modern hippies: Ethan Hughes and Sarah Wilcox, pursuing off-the-grid lives of secular utopianism and religious activism as farmers in the intentional community of Possibility Alliance in La Plata, Missouri; Olivia Hubert and Greg Willerer, working to create "a new economic model of food distribution" through Brother Nature Produce, an urban farm in violence-wracked Detroit; and Luci Brieger and Steve Elliott, a middle-aged farming couple in Victor, Montana, with three kids and a $40,000 yearly income, who have rejected the internet and popular culture in "uncompromising pursuit of an ethical life" in the local food movement. These unsettlers' early backgrounds vary from privileged to poor to hippie, but Sundeen shows how all take "true joy in work," seek constructive ways of living in society, and reap considerable rewards in their simple lives of voluntary poverty. The author is especially good at showing the difficulty of raising children in a connected society while wondering, as one iconoclast says here, "how do we fight the Man if we continue to buy his cheeseburgers?" He places these often inspiring, sometimes self-righteous families firmly in the American utopian tradition and traces the pervasive influences of authors from Tolstoy to Helen and Scott Nearing to Wendell Berry. Provocative reading for anyone who has ever yearned for a life of radical simplicity.

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December 1, 2016
Sundeen went in search of the good life in America, and this is what he found: three drastically different stories of people who grew sick of America's consumption and environmental impact. From a rural outpost in Missouri, where a couple is raising their daughters without cars or electricity, to postapocalyptic Detroit, where people have turned vacant city lots to fields of alfalfa, to a Montana farm, where a married couple raised their children while successfully bringing about a food revolution, Sundeen has found prime examples of American ingenuity, passion, and frontier spirit. In this ode to self-reliance, Sundeen doesn't guilt readers into feeling bad for habits of consumption, but readers will certainly start to rethink their impact on the world. Writing with careful consideration for each individual situation, Sundeen is enthusiastic in his presentation and artfully weaves his own personal narrative throughout his interactions. The result is a book that is well researched, immediately engaging, immensely readable, and ultimately inspiring. This is the perfect read for DIY-types with dreams of saving the world, or at least their own backyards.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2016, American Library Association.)

September 1, 2016

Author of the award-winning The Man Who Quit Money, Sundeen uses examples (himself and his wife included) to investigate the search for a simpler, more ecofriendly life, as exemplified by the locavore and sustainability movements.

Copyright 2016 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 1, 2016

In recent years, going off the grid as a modern-day homesteader has become idealized after glamorized depictions in popular culture and on social media. However, homesteading loses its reality TV show sheen in the hands of Sundeen (The Man Who Quit Money), portraying this humble lifestyle choice as more gritty than romantic. From dirt roads in rural Missouri to Detroit's foreclosed streets, Sundeen reports how people throughout the United States have chosen to live simple but never simply. In the footsteps of Wendell Berry's classic The Unsettling of America, which offered a call to find one's roots and unsettle America, here we meet three couples who are willing to create their own vision of success. While never preachy, these pages will leave any reader with a penchant for sustainability to question their own carbon footprint. VERDICT An engaging read for those with an interest in sustainable living, urban farming, and homesteading.--Angela Forret, Clive P.L., IA

Copyright 2016 School Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.