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The Meadowlands: Wilderness Adventures at the Edge of a City
Imagine a grungy north Jersey version of John McPhee's classic The Pine Barrens and you'll get some idea of the idiosyncratic, fact-filled, and highly original work that is Robert Sullivan's The Meadowlands . Just five miles west of New York City, this vilified, half-developed, half-untamed, much dumped-on, and sometimes odiferous tract of swampland is home to rare birds and missing bodies, tranquil marshes and a major sports arena, burning garbage dumps and corporate headquarters, the remains of the original Penn Station--and maybe, just ,maybe, of the late Jimmy Hoffa. Robert Sullivan proves himself to be this fragile yet amazingly resilient region's perfect expolorer, historian, archaeologist, and comic bard.
220 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1998
7 people are currently reading
448 people want to read
About the author
Robert Sullivan
153 books77 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the Goodreads database with this name.
Robert Sullivan is the author of Rats, The Meadowlands, A Whale Hunt, and most recently, The Thoreau You Don’t Know. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, New York magazine, A Public Space, and Vogue, where he is a contributing editor. He was born in Manhattan and now lives in Brooklyn, New York.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/robert...
Robert Sullivan is the author of Rats, The Meadowlands, A Whale Hunt, and most recently, The Thoreau You Don’t Know. His writing has appeared in The New Yorker, The New York Times, New York magazine, A Public Space, and Vogue, where he is a contributing editor. He was born in Manhattan and now lives in Brooklyn, New York.
http://us.macmillan.com/author/robert...
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 60 reviews
read-in-2012
January 28, 2023Alternating between flights of semi-lyricism, lengthy histories of troubled industry and development, and reportage from the trenches and canals, this probably isn't everyone's cup of oily bog water, but having lots of first-hand experience with these places, it's fascinating to get some more background.
Re-read to re-research for a film project in January 2023.
Re-read to re-research for a film project in January 2023.
November 5, 2023
Received this as a gift. Cracked it open and was immediately put off by the author’s voice/style those first few sentences.
(And not a full page into the book and somehow… I was hooked.)
Sullivan felt like a mashup between David Sedaris and Chuck Palahniuk (have those two authors ever been referenced in the same sentence before?!). He was able to find the most interesting tidbits in the strangest of places… getting really into the minutiae and history of this overlooked (and vilified) part of Jersey. Being able to stay engaging (and thoughtful) in the strangest of ways from the oddest of topics.
Not sure how many other writers could successfully bounce between a contentious lunch at Eagan’s (RIP, old friend) to asides on Seth Boyden (the tri-state’s answer to Leonardo da Vinci?) to his attempts at finding Jimmy Hoffa (low-hanging fruit, sure, but he kept it entertaining).
Having lived in a few of the towns he’s studying/discussing (and remembering events like all those backyards being swallowed up in North Arlington in the late 80’s), not to mention having worked in South Kearny for decades, surely added to my overall enjoyment and love of this book.
Parts of it are a bit dated now (25 years after it was first published) but it still holds up.
Next up… another one of his books - Rats.
(another gift, same friend… ‘nuff said)
"But I am creeping slowly back into the East, back to America’s first West – making a reverse commute to the already explored land that has become, through negligence, through exploitation, and through its own chaotic persistence, explorable again.”
"Many of the railroad ties on the bridge were burnt out so that the path was like the smile of a man with no teeth."
“When I dig in the Meadowlands, I do so in an attempt to rouse some of these people, places, or things from their sleep in the swamp. There’s plenty to dig for out there besides bodies.”
(And not a full page into the book and somehow… I was hooked.)
Sullivan felt like a mashup between David Sedaris and Chuck Palahniuk (have those two authors ever been referenced in the same sentence before?!). He was able to find the most interesting tidbits in the strangest of places… getting really into the minutiae and history of this overlooked (and vilified) part of Jersey. Being able to stay engaging (and thoughtful) in the strangest of ways from the oddest of topics.
Not sure how many other writers could successfully bounce between a contentious lunch at Eagan’s (RIP, old friend) to asides on Seth Boyden (the tri-state’s answer to Leonardo da Vinci?) to his attempts at finding Jimmy Hoffa (low-hanging fruit, sure, but he kept it entertaining).
Having lived in a few of the towns he’s studying/discussing (and remembering events like all those backyards being swallowed up in North Arlington in the late 80’s), not to mention having worked in South Kearny for decades, surely added to my overall enjoyment and love of this book.
Parts of it are a bit dated now (25 years after it was first published) but it still holds up.
Next up… another one of his books - Rats.
(another gift, same friend… ‘nuff said)
"But I am creeping slowly back into the East, back to America’s first West – making a reverse commute to the already explored land that has become, through negligence, through exploitation, and through its own chaotic persistence, explorable again.”
"Many of the railroad ties on the bridge were burnt out so that the path was like the smile of a man with no teeth."
“When I dig in the Meadowlands, I do so in an attempt to rouse some of these people, places, or things from their sleep in the swamp. There’s plenty to dig for out there besides bodies.”
July 7, 2019
This was brisk and entertaining and reminded me of Horwitz’s Confederates in the Attic. I grew up in NJ, I know the Meadowlands as seen from car and bus and train and plane. It never occurred to me (until I discovered this book) that you could actually traverse the Meadowlands by foot or canoe! I thought I would learn more about it than I did, though. I also thought there would be photos - I was disappointed.
Sullivan does a great job of describing each of the people he comes across during his investigations into the wetlands. He does a passably okay job describing the wildlife he finds there; it's mentioned, but I was hoping for a bit more detail. (And photos! I was definitely hoping for photos.)
Sullivan's finest moments are when he manages to gently poke fun at New Jersey, while still making it clear that he loves it there. New Jersey is the easy butt of jokes from outsiders, but outsiders don't understand that this state - the most densely populated state in the country - is a very odd mix of: shoulder-to-shoulder-people-everywhere, and then a mile down the road you can suddenly be in the middle of fucking nowhere, and down the road from fucking nowhere is a farm stand and hubcap shop. Because New Jersey. There are beautiful wildernesses side-by-jowl with charming historic villages elbow-to-elbow with dank industrial zones - that's the weird wonder of New Jersey.
I was also hoping he would devote a few paragraphs (or a chapter) to the immense environmental benefits of wetlands. Wetlands are very efficient water filters, and they are doing the best they can to keep up with humankind's toxic waste dumps; without wetlands, we'd be in a bigger world of hurt than we are today. And, possibly even more importantly, wetlands are nature's buffer zones and bumpers, they take the brunt of hurricane forces and protect the inland zones from destruction. It's our destruction of wetland areas that is causing more destruction during hurricanes (well, that, and hurricanes are getting more powerful - thanks, global warming!). It's clear that Sullivan is not a naturalist, because he doesn't mention these two big issues at all (and as previously noted, he doesn't spend as much time on the nature part as I wished). His focus is on the quirky people, both past and present.
There are some odd sentences that could've used an editor's hand, such as: "When humans arrived in the Meadowlands, in about 10,000 BC, and went from leaving huge piles of oyster shells to dumping increasingly poisonous waste, from homes, then from workshops, then from factories." And okay, when they arrived ... What happened?? This sentence is missing its conclusion, it's all intro and no meat.
And when he notes that the Meadowlands were once home to abundant wildlife, including: " ... catamounts, hares, martens, flying squirrels, bears, and mountain lions..." I'm left scratching my head, because a catamount IS a mountain lion.
Sullivan does a great job of describing each of the people he comes across during his investigations into the wetlands. He does a passably okay job describing the wildlife he finds there; it's mentioned, but I was hoping for a bit more detail. (And photos! I was definitely hoping for photos.)
Sullivan's finest moments are when he manages to gently poke fun at New Jersey, while still making it clear that he loves it there. New Jersey is the easy butt of jokes from outsiders, but outsiders don't understand that this state - the most densely populated state in the country - is a very odd mix of: shoulder-to-shoulder-people-everywhere, and then a mile down the road you can suddenly be in the middle of fucking nowhere, and down the road from fucking nowhere is a farm stand and hubcap shop. Because New Jersey. There are beautiful wildernesses side-by-jowl with charming historic villages elbow-to-elbow with dank industrial zones - that's the weird wonder of New Jersey.
I like to think of the Meadowlands as an undesignated national park, where you can visit all the sites, or as a more classic tourist destination, like Paris, where instead of roaming through old streets and wandering aimlessly through cafes and shops I wander along the edges of swamps. One spring, I flew to Newark, rented a car, and checked into a hotel with the idea of touring around and just seeing where events would lead me. Like the Grand Canyon, with its North Rim and South Rim and their respective concentrations of lodgings, the Meadowlands pools its motels into two areas. Along the eastern edge of the Meadowlands are the seedy motels that cater mostly to truck drivers. These motels look out at the huge, flat center of the Meadowlands as if they have all just woken up and are still tired and really need a cup of coffee and a shower. Along the western edge, the hotels and motels stand tall and crisp and glass-covered; these are the business person-oriented hotels. To these hotels and motels the landscape is incidental, if not insignificant; they try to pretend the Meadowlands are not there.
I was also hoping he would devote a few paragraphs (or a chapter) to the immense environmental benefits of wetlands. Wetlands are very efficient water filters, and they are doing the best they can to keep up with humankind's toxic waste dumps; without wetlands, we'd be in a bigger world of hurt than we are today. And, possibly even more importantly, wetlands are nature's buffer zones and bumpers, they take the brunt of hurricane forces and protect the inland zones from destruction. It's our destruction of wetland areas that is causing more destruction during hurricanes (well, that, and hurricanes are getting more powerful - thanks, global warming!). It's clear that Sullivan is not a naturalist, because he doesn't mention these two big issues at all (and as previously noted, he doesn't spend as much time on the nature part as I wished). His focus is on the quirky people, both past and present.
There are some odd sentences that could've used an editor's hand, such as: "When humans arrived in the Meadowlands, in about 10,000 BC, and went from leaving huge piles of oyster shells to dumping increasingly poisonous waste, from homes, then from workshops, then from factories." And okay, when they arrived ... What happened?? This sentence is missing its conclusion, it's all intro and no meat.
And when he notes that the Meadowlands were once home to abundant wildlife, including: " ... catamounts, hares, martens, flying squirrels, bears, and mountain lions..." I'm left scratching my head, because a catamount IS a mountain lion.
December 27, 2022
I live a couple towns over from the Meadowlands and, like the author, I have explored and experienced the Meadowlands on foot, by car, by commuter train, and by boat. He captures perfectly the paradoxes—and they are multiple—of the region.
It’s the kind of place where you turn a corner in an office park and see the remains of the Kingsland Explosion while also seeing a Great Blue Heron and Tree Swallows in the same idyllic marsh pond. Just recently, the history of the slave trade here resurfaced, memorialized at a canoe launch on the Hackensack River. These aren’t covered in Sullivan’s book, but this just proves the real point that the Meadowlands is a constant source of forgotten secrets, new revelations, and individual discovery. This Sullivan understood, provoking in him both wonder and foreboding.
What’s more, in talking to people in the area, his book portrays what it’s like living in northern NJ. Despite its age, it still rings true, which is a testament to how clearly he reflected in prose the Meadowlands’ essential nature.
Thematically, the book offers a snapshot of American progress and the attempts to conquer such places. As such narratives go, nature pushes back and frequently lays bares humanity’s vanity and foibles. In the case of the Meadowlands, it has a way of absorbing people and spitting them back up, forever changed.
It’s the kind of place where you turn a corner in an office park and see the remains of the Kingsland Explosion while also seeing a Great Blue Heron and Tree Swallows in the same idyllic marsh pond. Just recently, the history of the slave trade here resurfaced, memorialized at a canoe launch on the Hackensack River. These aren’t covered in Sullivan’s book, but this just proves the real point that the Meadowlands is a constant source of forgotten secrets, new revelations, and individual discovery. This Sullivan understood, provoking in him both wonder and foreboding.
What’s more, in talking to people in the area, his book portrays what it’s like living in northern NJ. Despite its age, it still rings true, which is a testament to how clearly he reflected in prose the Meadowlands’ essential nature.
Thematically, the book offers a snapshot of American progress and the attempts to conquer such places. As such narratives go, nature pushes back and frequently lays bares humanity’s vanity and foibles. In the case of the Meadowlands, it has a way of absorbing people and spitting them back up, forever changed.
January 17, 2008
While the Meadowlands are probably best known for the sports complex of the same name, this huge marshland that lies just five miles outside of New York was once home to a huge array of wildlife. With that in mind, Robert Sullivan sets off to explore and discover the hidden secrets of what he feels is an “undesignated national park.”
Even though it spent years as a dumping ground for New York, Sullivan’s travels through the area, and his conversations with the locals, stitch together an exotic history for this huge tract of wetlands. He uncovers stories of failed agricultural projects, dislocated industry, misplaced development, and any number of shady deals.
In many ways, The Meadowlands is more about the people who live in and around the marshland than about the wetlands themselves. Sullivan uses the quirky and eclectic personalities that he meets to illustrate the equally quirky history of the area; surprisingly, it works to create a colorful and intriguing story filled with details on the countless ambitious proposals dreamed up for the Meadowlands.
Despite the fact that the subject seems like an odd topic for a book, Sullivan manages to make a case for naturalism in practically any environment.
Even though it spent years as a dumping ground for New York, Sullivan’s travels through the area, and his conversations with the locals, stitch together an exotic history for this huge tract of wetlands. He uncovers stories of failed agricultural projects, dislocated industry, misplaced development, and any number of shady deals.
In many ways, The Meadowlands is more about the people who live in and around the marshland than about the wetlands themselves. Sullivan uses the quirky and eclectic personalities that he meets to illustrate the equally quirky history of the area; surprisingly, it works to create a colorful and intriguing story filled with details on the countless ambitious proposals dreamed up for the Meadowlands.
Despite the fact that the subject seems like an odd topic for a book, Sullivan manages to make a case for naturalism in practically any environment.
March 13, 2013
The first time I read this book it did very little for me, but now I have reread it I liked it better. Maybe I was expecting something more high octane the first time. Sullivan writes in journalese and has structured this book in the same way documentaries on Discovery Channel are structured (TV as the main influence on non-fiction books is an interesting development but this book is not as bad as in Into The Wild, which reads like a transcript from a TLC program). Meadowlands reads with the ease of a chainsaw going through a French cheese, they are several nice passages. But the Meadowlands are far away from where I am, I have no image of them, and this book doesn't really evoke the place as such a book should do. I liked reading it, I like the genre this book falls in, but it remains inconsequential.
February 1, 2015
Reflective, humorous walking and canoeing tour and history of the Meadowlands and the people who live there. Educational and eye-opening physical and historical details. When I take New Jersey Transit to New York Penn Station, these no-man's wetlands of urban decay cry out to me for further research and creative treatment. I see them as Tolkien's Dead Marshes. To this author, they are a modern, grotesque version of Walden Pond.
July 3, 2023
This inspired my own series of Meadowlands trips by bike. Great read for those who want to learn more about hidden secrets right around the corner.
November 1, 2022
I spent many years traveling through the Meadowlands via NJ Transit ti and from NYC and wondered about this natural beauty littered with old tires and collapsed unused utility posts and wires. The wetlands are inhabited by egrets, herons, cormorants, hawks, swans, and turtles - and that’s only what I saw from the train.
Even if I wasn’t familiar with the Meadowlands, I would have found this book enjoyable, for the most part. The author dives into Bill Bryson territory when he comically spins stories about his ill thought out canoe trips into the swamp and his encounters with characters from this part of NJ. It’s only when he related the history of the area that it bogged down for me, sorry to say. But those sections were slim and the rest of the book was a wild romp.
Even if I wasn’t familiar with the Meadowlands, I would have found this book enjoyable, for the most part. The author dives into Bill Bryson territory when he comically spins stories about his ill thought out canoe trips into the swamp and his encounters with characters from this part of NJ. It’s only when he related the history of the area that it bogged down for me, sorry to say. But those sections were slim and the rest of the book was a wild romp.
March 11, 2017
In one of his travels in the Meadowlands, Robert Sullivan is picked up by a Secaucus animal control officer who tells him, "If you dig out here, you sure as heck are going to find something." That's the issue of the book: Sullivan digs--literally and figuratively--for the secret knowledge, history, and treasures of the Meadowlands. This is a very funny book and there were many parts that made me laugh out loud. I won't spoil them here. Sullivan is a good writer and this reminded me of Charles Portis's masterpiece The Dog of the South--and if you've ever read that, you know this is high praise.
July 24, 2017
I owe this book a lot for getting me interested enough to go out into the Meadowlnds, in Secaucus and Lyndhurst. But even better is Quinn's Fields of Sun and Grass: An Artist's Journal of the New Jersey Meadowlands.
August 21, 2017
I came across this in the library and am so glad I did! As a lifelong resident of NJ, I found it fascinating. I'm not sure how it would read to someone unfamiliar with the area, but it is certainly a great little book about an often misunderstood area.
March 9, 2018
I think you'd have to have some type of connection to this area to really appreciate this book- I did grow up around it-- and he made the trip very enjoyable.
May 31, 2020
Entertaining if you like gritty industrial history and a good storyteller...
April 13, 2024
Even better than Rats. The chapter on Leo Koncher is particularly outstanding.
August 23, 2025
Great book, fun read!
October 10, 2025
Well written slice-of-life look at the maligned wetlands across the Hudson from New York City. The book is propelled by a wry view that history lurks just under the surface of the NYC metropolitan area. While I was hoping for more of the gonzo-naturalism that only discussed in the final chapter of the book, it’s still a fun read.
November 11, 2025
Probably much more interesting if you live near, or are familiar with, the Meadowlands.
March 21, 2017
Really a collection of essays and explorations. More Than I ever thought I wanted to know about the Meadowlands, but intriguing enough that I slow down on that stretch of the Turnpike now and try to catch sight of the Pulaski Skyway. I can even imagine taking one of the competing boat tours sometime. I particularly love the way the lore of the land is intertwined with strands of New York City myths and legends.
February 16, 2025
I received this for my 40th birthday on December 17th and devoured it. By far the best of everything I read in 2024, this little book deserves to be on the required reading list of every high school curriculum within the vicinity of the Meadowlands. I grew up in Wood-Ridge, a one square mile town that occupies a small part of the Meadowlands. The town gets a shout out for being a significant site of mercury contamination. Humble brag: my friends and I illegally camped out on the poisoned property out there back in the early 2000s and got caught. They wrote about us in the police blotter of the local paper! Anyway, it's since become a ballfield, so hopefully we escaped the worst of any other negative side effects. In any case, I wish I had known about this book back then. It might have helped me appreciate the swamp I rose out of a bit more while I was living there. Chock full of interesting stories, colorful characters, and plenty of weird history, Sullivan covers everything in the Meadowlands from the Mafia to mosquitoes. I enjoyed the writing as much as the content. Now I am inspired to take my canoe out on the stinking, fetid waters of New Jersey's greatest lost and hidden treasure next summer! So who's with me?
October 23, 2010
“Once, there were actual meadows in the Meadowlands, decorated with wildflowers the way they are today littered with bits of paper and plastic and truck tire shards” (35).
The Meadowslands is not as foreign to me as most of New Jersey. I have lived here over a year and I have driven through the Meadowlands and taken too many trains through Secaucus. When I told my students that I’d decided to add a day on NJ environmental writing and we’d be reading about Meadowlands, many groaned. Most of my students had been to Meadowlands and none of them had been impressed. I think this book will impress them though. The writing is crisp. The history of the Meadowlands is told in contrast to its depressing present. Fascinating characters and stories populate his adventures and explorations. Yet, Sullivan does not let the city destroy the wild. My favorite chapter was “Walden Swamp.”
I wanted to read this book quickly, skip through it on the way to my next task. But I found myself reading slowly, pulled in by the description of North Jersey, an area so close to where I live. I won’t be teaching environmental writing in the future without this book.
The Meadowslands is not as foreign to me as most of New Jersey. I have lived here over a year and I have driven through the Meadowlands and taken too many trains through Secaucus. When I told my students that I’d decided to add a day on NJ environmental writing and we’d be reading about Meadowlands, many groaned. Most of my students had been to Meadowlands and none of them had been impressed. I think this book will impress them though. The writing is crisp. The history of the Meadowlands is told in contrast to its depressing present. Fascinating characters and stories populate his adventures and explorations. Yet, Sullivan does not let the city destroy the wild. My favorite chapter was “Walden Swamp.”
I wanted to read this book quickly, skip through it on the way to my next task. But I found myself reading slowly, pulled in by the description of North Jersey, an area so close to where I live. I won’t be teaching environmental writing in the future without this book.
August 24, 2014
for someone like me, who has countless times on trains, busses, and cars stared out the window at the immensity of the new jersey meadowlands, this book satisfied a great deal of curiosity that i had about that area, while also providing illumination about matters i had no idea about. i can remember a time pasing the meadowlands in early spring and seeing a massive bald eagle eating a rat on the top of a lamp post, and i never fail to look out for a red winged blackbird when i pass. what i did not know was that, besides jimmy hoffa, the ruined remains of the original penn station are dumped in the meadowlands somewhere.
sullivan is a combination of john mcphee, charles kuralt, and joseph mitchell, giving his readers the physical topography of a place, while also filling that landscape with the human beings that give the region its voice. i've read robert sullivan's books on rats, the american revolution, and whale hunting, and have found them all to be fascinating, well told, and surprising.
sullivan is a combination of john mcphee, charles kuralt, and joseph mitchell, giving his readers the physical topography of a place, while also filling that landscape with the human beings that give the region its voice. i've read robert sullivan's books on rats, the american revolution, and whale hunting, and have found them all to be fascinating, well told, and surprising.
June 19, 2009
I grew up in one of the towns that edged 'the meadows', a 32 acre swamp that you see from the Jersey Turnpike, now home of the Giants Stadium. The neighborhood lore among the kids was at least as colorful as Sullivan describes it---the boldest boys bragged about going there to hunt rats and find escapees from 'Snake Hill', a sanitorium with stories right out of the pits of hell. It was edged by a meat packing house, an abattoir?, whose odors wafted over the whole area during certain weather patterns, as well as other kinds of factories. And it may have been one of the worst pollution sites in the country. The characters who ran the political machine were as colorful as the kids' stories, like Boss "I am the Law" Hague. Today it is being reclaimed toward its original glory, a saltwater marsh where cranberries were grown in the late 1800's. What rich memories Sullivan surfaced for me. This is one of the most entertaining books I've read.
February 3, 2015
Sullivan, Robert. The Meadowlands.
Not your typical travel and nature account. Avoiding the glamour and reverence that such writings often offer, Sullivan’s trips involve a series of exploration s of the polluted and industrialized ”Meadowlands” of Secaucus, New Jersey. Sullivan takes a wry,wondering, deadpan look at what and whom he encounters: Walden Swamp, with its toxic waste; a mosquito abatement team; an 83-year old man still paddling through the marshes and dreaming of pirate treasure; and a retired detective who identifies the bodies - possibly murder victims - that are found in the swamp.
And yet there are fish, ducks and egrets who thrive in this. And people who dreamed in the past, and others who dream today, that the Meadowlands might be the site of productive development. A very funny and honest and original (given the subject matter I can’t say fresh) view of an area most of us would view with dismay. This gives new meaning to the term “wildlands.”.
Not your typical travel and nature account. Avoiding the glamour and reverence that such writings often offer, Sullivan’s trips involve a series of exploration s of the polluted and industrialized ”Meadowlands” of Secaucus, New Jersey. Sullivan takes a wry,wondering, deadpan look at what and whom he encounters: Walden Swamp, with its toxic waste; a mosquito abatement team; an 83-year old man still paddling through the marshes and dreaming of pirate treasure; and a retired detective who identifies the bodies - possibly murder victims - that are found in the swamp.
And yet there are fish, ducks and egrets who thrive in this. And people who dreamed in the past, and others who dream today, that the Meadowlands might be the site of productive development. A very funny and honest and original (given the subject matter I can’t say fresh) view of an area most of us would view with dismay. This gives new meaning to the term “wildlands.”.
February 16, 2008
I liked this book. The Meadowlands has a pretty colorful history, what with pig farms, pirates, pieces of New York City and World War II-era London hidden inside, long-gone cedar forests and flower farms, garbage dumps, and of course, dead bodies. But it might be of limited interest to anyone who didn't grow up in north Jersey. Everyone might not be fascinated by the sections on the history of mosquito control efforts in the Meadowlands, for instance, or the fight over Meadowlands development, or the building of the Pulaski Skyway (the bridge seen in the opening credits of The Sopranos). But Robert Sullivan does manage to write about everything in a fairly entertaining way so that even the section on mosquito control is more entertaining than it sounds. Even when he's covering a dry subject, a lot of the emphasis is on the people involved, many of whom are a little eccentric.
May 30, 2009
I’ve admired Robert Sullivan’s writing for a number of years now, but this is the first time I’ve read The Meadowlands, and I guess that’s like claiming you’re a Thoreau fan but never having read Walden—which, incidentally, I don’t, and I haven’t.
And, actually, Sullivan’s book wasn’t quite what I’d expected. He spends surprisingly little time exploring the wilds of the Meadowlands or mediating on nature. A far greater proportion of the book examines the area’s urban history (the “un-natural” history) and its rather extensive folklore. In Sullivan’s capable hands, the book is of course interesting and funny, filled with all manner of oddballs and oozing mountains of trash, but perhaps what I was hoping for from this book was something more akin to a poem than an article from Outside magazine.
And, actually, Sullivan’s book wasn’t quite what I’d expected. He spends surprisingly little time exploring the wilds of the Meadowlands or mediating on nature. A far greater proportion of the book examines the area’s urban history (the “un-natural” history) and its rather extensive folklore. In Sullivan’s capable hands, the book is of course interesting and funny, filled with all manner of oddballs and oozing mountains of trash, but perhaps what I was hoping for from this book was something more akin to a poem than an article from Outside magazine.
October 12, 2010
This is a series of essays written by a naturalist about the wholly polluted swamps of NJ that surround New York City. It covers rats, the hunt for Jimmy Hoffa, underwater buildings, gigantic piles of garbage, canoeing through water the color of antifreeze (that may or may not eat through the bottom of the canoe), and the cast of characters that surround this mess. As a somewhat touchy native of NJ, I was braced to be offended when I read this, but found that the author treats his subject with the respect it, oddly, deserves. The essay about buying equipment at CampMor (in which the author explains to the salesperson that he wants a water filter that can handle where he's going) is worth the price of admission. A really enjoyable, thought-provoking book.
January 28, 2008
I loved this book when I read it and I still recommend it. Who knows how many times I've given it as a gift. An armchair tour (and how many of us really want to go to the Meadlowlands in person?) of a wasteland. And this is a deliberate wasteland -- it's seemingly ok to pollute it and ignore it. Legends of dead bodies and mafia mysteries notwithstanding, the landscape and the people who inhabit it are fascinating. Sullivan's research really shines and he seamlessly weaves history and modern life into an entertaining and informative narrative.
Can't recommend it enough if you like modern nonfiction.
Can't recommend it enough if you like modern nonfiction.
September 3, 2007
I had high expectations for this book that promised hip, edgy urban adventuring a la Joe Marraffino. But, alas, it didn't quite deliver. Bottom line: too much quasi-interesting historical ramblings and too little descriptions of the crazy people and things that are found on the expeditions in the urban wild.
Still, I'll never make that drive from Baltimore to points north through NYC without thinking about this book and without looking at the passing scenery just this side of the big city with a different, more curious, eye.
Still, I'll never make that drive from Baltimore to points north through NYC without thinking about this book and without looking at the passing scenery just this side of the big city with a different, more curious, eye.
July 31, 2008
This is what nature writing is currently exploring; the familiar wilderness -- places and animals which we often take for granted, but know little about. Robert Sullivan explores the often maligned Meadowlands, a large and famous New Jersey wetland near New York City, as if he was winding through the sawgrass of the Everglades, or the black waters of the Amazon. He introduces us to a variety of people whose lives have been touched by the Meadowlands in the past, or are striving to save it for future generations. A fascinating story about an unfamiliar yet familiar place.
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