Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Rachel Carson's environmentalist tract Silent Spring was profoundly influenced by her romantic relationship with her neighbor Dorothy Freeman, according to this bracing treatise. Maxwell (Insurgent Truth), a political science professor at Boston University, recounts how in 1953, Freeman introduced herself to Carson after the writer moved down the street from her in Southport Island, Maine. The pair bonded over their love of nature, Maxwell writes, suggesting they inspired in each other the same wonder with which they regarded the anemones, veeries, and wood thrushes they observed while exploring Southport's beaches and forests together. Maxwell contends that just as Freeman helped Carson envision romance beyond heterosexuality, she also helped the writer envision a future unburdened by the capitalist excess that Carson blamed for polluting the environment. The close study of Carson and Freeman's letters reveals an underexamined side of the environmentalist, and Maxwell's assertion that "heteronormativity is a climate issue" is provocative. She posits that mainstream notions of the good life often revolve around straight couples who derive happiness from purchasing goods and services, a consumerist ethos that harms the climate while obscuring the rewards of appreciating the natural world. A more sustainable future, she suggests, requires adopting a "queer" (i.e., outside the mainstream) outlook that's able to critically assess the environmentally ruinous consequences of capitalism. A stimulating blend of biography and queer theory, this intrigues. Photos. (Jan.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
Maxwell (political science and women's, gender, and sexuality studies, Boston Univ.; Insurgent Truth: Chelsea Manning and the Politics of Outsider Truth-Telling) presents a compelling argument about noted environmentalist Rachel Carson's romantic love for her friend and neighbor Dorothy Freeman and its influence on her masterpiece Silent Spring. Maxwell examines the letters between Carson and Freeman and places their love in conversation with other queer, anti-racist, and environmental theorists. The book argues that Carson's queer relationship was fundamentally anti-capitalist and deeply influenced Carson's desire and ability to craft Silent Spring into the political phenomenon that it became. It further offers a moving argument for the ways in which queer relationships embody opposition to the modern capitalist heteronormative ideal, while centering Carson and Freeman's intimate letters as its premier example. VERDICT Drawing on both primary sources and academic theory, Maxwell makes a compelling argument that is both relevant and moving. This book will appeal most to advanced readers and researchers interested either in Carson's life and work or the interplay between queer and environmental theory.--Lydia Fletcher
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
The noted environmentalist was inspired by a love affair. Maxwell, professor of political science and women's, gender, and sexuality studies, offers a celebration of queer love and a critique of heteronormativity through her examination of the intimate friendship between Carson (1907-1964) and Dorothy Freeman (1898-1978). The two met in 1953, when Carson built a house neighboring that of Freeman and her husband in Southport, Maine; their immediate emotional bond deepened through the years. Maxwell describes the friendship as "queer" because it "drew them out of conventional forms of marriage and family"; furthermore, she asserts repeatedly, the relationship changed Carson, whose writing "became more vibrant, passionate, and urgent after she fell in love," empowering her to writeSilent Spring (1962), her exposé of the deleterious effects of the unregulated use of pesticides and insecticides on human and nonhuman life. As Maxwell sees it, failure by biographers to account for the friendship's significance in Carson's writing of that book "reinforces the ideology of what I call 'straight love.'" The affair, Maxwell argues, shifted Carson's perspective on nonhuman nature, fueling her desire "to sustain the vibrant multispecies world that helped create their love." Although Carson had established herself as an acclaimed nature writer beforeSilent Spring, still Maxwell asks, "Would Carson ever have realized that nature is a source of 'wonder,' if she had not met Freeman, and scripted their love, with her, as a source of wonder?" Setting Carson and Freeman's love in the context of her own queer relationship, Maxwell encourages everyone to "become more attuned to their queer feelings, what those feelings might teach them about themselves," and "what politics they might want to engage in." Reading Carson and Freeman's letters, Maxwell declares, have taught her that "queer love can change the world." An impassioned analysis, at times overly insistent. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
