Anthony McCann Bloomsbury 7/2/2019, hardcover SKU: 9781635571202 In 2016, a group of armed, divinely inspired right-wing protestors led by Ammon Bundy occupied the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in the high desert of eastern Oregon. Encamped in the shadowlands of the republic, insisting that the Federal government had no right to own public land, the occupiers were seen by a divided country as either dangerous extremists dressed up as cowboys, or as heroes insisting on restoring the rule of the Constitution. From the Occupation's beginnings, to the trials of the occupiers in federal court in downtown Portland and their tumultuous aftermaths, Shadowlands is the resonant, multifaceted story of one of the most dramatic flashpoints in the year that gave us Donald Trump. "SHADOWLANDS offers fascinating insights and poses interesting questions. . . . a valuable glimpse at a group of often overlooked people contributing to the great divide in American life." - Minneapolis Star Tribune "A riveting in-depth investigation . . . McCann's arresting and brilliant firsthand account is required reading for anyone interested in the ideological gap between the American Left and Right." - starred review, Publishers Weekly "An insider account of the Malheur occupation. From the lead-up to the occupation, through the trials and the aftermath, this will be the defining chronicle of a cultural and political moment we could all do better to understand." - Source Weekly "McCann's account of the 2016 standoff known as the 'Oregon Occupation' defies categorization but is built out of a non-fiction tradition that stretches back to Joan Didion's California essays, Capote's In Cold Blood, and other ambitious works that begin with a violent transgression and radiate outward to take in large swaths of society during a flashpoint crisis. McCann breaks through the accepted narratives of the standoff to get at deeper truths about land in the west, ranching traditions, activist causes, and a host of other issues so central to today's national divide." - CrimeReads "It is a different tone. If those [other books] are more from that immersion journalism, seat-of-the-pants, gonzo journalism this is more a poetic touch. . . . He takes a different approach that readers might find 'refreshing'." - State of Nevada, Nevada Public Radio "Wonderful journalistic detailed history, with deep-rooted significance that the writer helps us comprehend both intellectually and viscerally." - Shawangunk Journal "The story Shadowlands tells is compulsively fascinating, and an excellent microcosm by which we might better understand our difficult national history and distressing political moment. McCann's magnificent prose, ever-questing intellect, wry humor, and uncommon empathy for human and non-human forms of life alike make Shadowlands a truly rare and stunning achievement." - Maggie Nelson, National Book Critics Circle Award winning author of THE ARGONAUTS "The SoCal-based poet brings vivid lyricism to Shadowlands, an account of the 2016 right-wing occupation at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge." - Portland Monthly "With empathy, poetry, and a keen, clear-eyed sense of the weirdness of it all, Anthony McCann goes far beyond the cartoon version of the Malheur occupation that we all watched on the news. Shadowlands is a powerful reckoning with history and all the Big American Words--freedom, democracy, sovereignty--that echo through the silence and violence of the American West." - Ben Ehrenreich, author of THE WAY TO THE SPRING About the Author: Anthony McCann is the author of the poetry collections Thing Music, I Heart Your Fate and Moongarden. He currently teaches creative writing at the California Institute of the Arts and in the Low-Residency MFA program of the University of California, Riverside. Born and raised in the Hudson Valley, McCann now lives in the Mojave Desert.
