Groundglass

by Kathryn Savage

“Could there be something humbling and revolutionary in understanding myself as a site of contamination?”

Groundglass takes shape atop a polluted aquifer in Minnesota, beside trains that haul fracked crude oil, as Kathryn Savage confronts the transgressions of U.S. Superfund sites and brownfields against land, groundwater, neighborhoods, and people. Drawing on her own experiences growing up on the fence lines of industry and the parallel realities of raising a young son while grieving a father dying of a cancer with known environmental risk factors, Savage traces concentric rings of connection—between our bodies, one another, our communities, and our ecosystem. She explores the porous boundary between self and environment, and the ambiguous yet growing body of evidence linking toxins to disease. Equal parts mourning poem and manifesto for environmental justice, Groundglass reminds us that no living thing exists on its own.

Genres: Nonfiction, Poetry, Essays, Memoir, Grief, Environment

227 pages, Kindle Edition

Published August 2, 2022

Reviews

[Katharine Lathe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Hard to understand the theme of the book until the very end. Beautiful story with a powerful message. It is worth it to get through the unfinished thoughts throughout the book. Beautifully written.

[Elizabeth Wenger]

inquisitive exploration of death/health and the body in the face of deteriorating environments

style is poetic, almost lyrical - but extremely easayistic in its incorporation of fact, film, and literary allusion

especially loved the use of other voices (as when savage “passes the mic” to other people whose lives/bodies have been touched by toxic environments) - a valuable tool in this sort of writing - reminded me of voices for chernobyl in that sort of “let the survivors speak” sense

left me with a question i still can’t answer (this is not to say the book needed to answer it) of where does the blame fall and where does the responsibility fall in cases of superfunds/brownfields/etc

a question i’ve been thinking about since visiting picher OK myself where the guilty parties are almost all long gone (the mining happened ages ago) ? yet the damage has long outlasted the closing of the mines

who pays to fix the damage? and who pays the price of the toxicity that lingers ?


anyway if u like a sort of hybrid essay with a focus on environment - pick this book UP

[Hal Schrieve · Rating 4 out of 5]

As someone considering moving to Minneapolis, knowing more about environmental pollution and its effects is useful. I am still considering how I feel about the success of the autobio and environmental information aspects of this book, but it must work, since I read it in three hours and found it riveting while doing so. The Twin Cities' industrial history and segregation history has resulted in cancer clusters and other health effects which are being murkily mitigated. The paranoia Savage feels about supposed voluntary efforts at mitigation of health hazards not being effective strikes me alternately as incisively pointing to structural problems and, occasionally, so fuzzy and multidirectional that I doubt its utility. How can you tilt at so many windmills--train depots, water, community gardens in polluted soil, housing in polluted post-industrial air, oil spills, pipelines, mining waste-- without losing some of your giant-killing momentum? At the same time, the local focus on Twin Cities in the initial portion of the book de-normalizes health hazards which surround us daily and which are dismissed as ordinary or signs of progress, and only later translated to bodily harm, which is then blamed on the individual rather than economic or social conditions.

Groundglass also doesn't quite read on a treatise on effective organizing; Savage's own attempts to become involved in advocacy are scattershot, though ongoing, and while she is welcomed by other environmental and racial justice activists, she seems uneasy in that role. The text seems more intended to voice something unstated about the author's father's cancer, to offer a lens through which to process tragedies seen as individual and random as collective. There is a sense of fear and despair about the book that I feel less of when reading Eli Clare, which is about similar things, which I attribute to the author's community activism being only nascent and it being written during a time of a thousand small battles on various fronts being fought and lost an inch at a time, whether in indigenous communities, suburbs or cities.

[Dayeton Tolle · Rating 4 out of 5]

Kathryn Savage instills in readers that we are the product of our environment—harbingers of the ground and life we stand upon. This means for better or for worse—in sickness and in shared-ness of the fields and prairies we inhabit before chemical treatment buildings strip it all away. This exploration of land, relationship to the land, how the land gives back (both positively and negatively), and what it means to envelope personal grief/loss with the land reminded me that structure and scape make a writer. One, like Savage, who is extraordinarily a product of her environment. Literally. Everyone should read this book in order to take care of the things (and bodies) that mean so much to us.

[Noam Levinsky · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've read a fair amount of theory that does the work of deconstructing the distinction between human and environment, but I love the way Savage makes a similar argument in a long personal essay. This book was moving and gave me a lot to think about regarding my own relationship with polluted and damaged landscapes.

[Molly · Rating 5 out of 5]

A deeply affecting and important perspective on how when we poison the earth, we are poisoning ourselves.

"I am as polluted as the sites. Could there be something humbling and revolutionary in understanding myself as a site of contamination? Inheritor of my ancestors ' trash and misdeeds? Could restorative action and real redress grow out of this painful recognition?"

[Brooke · Rating 4 out of 5]

“I am both who and where I’ve come from; i echo.” This book was outside of the typical genres I read, but it was really eye opening. Explores environmental pollutants and burden the on the body, extractive capitalism, and contemporary racism. Great book.

[Carla Homeister · Rating 5 out of 5]

A compilation of short essays that take place both before and after her father’s death, Savage visits some of the most toxic places in the United States. She explores the relationship between our bodies, communities, and our environment, but also how porous the boundary can be between the self and our ecosystem, and shows us the evidence linking toxins to disease. Both mourning poem and manifesto for environmental justice, Savage reminds us that no living thing exists separately

[Talka · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is beautiful, heartbreaking, educational, thoughtful, insightful, philosophical…highly highly recommend. The works all center around the author’s father’s death, living near superfund sites, and a deeper exploration of how this has shaped her life (and community lives) over time. I’m not doing this justice, so go read it yourself.

[Natasha Williams · Rating 5 out of 5]

“What would true remediation look like here, ecologically and culturally…. It would be reparations, the end of settler violence, land back; my absence.”

I want to say so many things but mainly, thank you.

[della · Rating 5 out of 5]

loved this essay, it was a happen stance find at the library that followed up really well to a meditation retreat i went on earlier this summer. powerful story-telling of lived experiences ⚡️

[Kate Vogl · Rating 5 out of 5]

A stunning collection of essays examining what the body knows, and what the body remembers.