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    The Last American Man
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    The Last American Man
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    The Last American Man
    Audiobook (abridged)6 hours

    The Last American Man

    Written by Elizabeth Gilbert

    Narrated by Patricia Kalember

    3.5/5

    ()

    Currently unavailable

    Currently unavailable

    About this audiobook

    An unforgettable look at a truly pioneering, but thoroughly modern, American hero.Finalist for the National Book Award 2002In this rousing examination of contemporary American male identity, acclaimed author and journalist Elizabeth Gilbert explores the fascinating true story of Eustace Conway. In 1977, at the age of seventeen, Conway left his family's comfortable suburban home to move to the Appalachian Mountains. For more than two decades he has lived there, making fire with sticks, wearing skins from animals he has trapped, and trying to convince Americans to give up their materialistic lifestyles and return with him back to nature. To Gilbert, Conway's mythical character challenges all our assumptions about what it is to be a modern man in America; he is a symbol of much we feel how our men should be, but rarely are.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherPenguin Random House Audio
    Release dateDec 23, 2009
    ISBN9781101154472
    Unavailable
    The Last American Man
    Author

    Elizabeth Gilbert

    Elizabeth Gilbert is the Number One New York Times bestselling author of Eat Pray Love and several other internationally bestselling books of fiction and non-fiction. Her story collection Pilgrims was a finalist for the PEN/Hemingway award; The Last American Man was a finalist for both the National Book Award and the National Book Critics Circle Award. Her follow-up memoir to Eat Pray Love, Committed, became an instant Number One New York Times bestseller. She has published two novels, Stern Men and The Signature of All Things, which was longlisted for the Baileys Women's Prize for Fiction and shortlisted for the Wellcome Book Prize. She lives in New Jersey. www.elizabethgilbert.com @GilbertLiz

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    Reviews for The Last American Man

    3.5/5

    205 ratings14 reviews

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    • 3/5
      We watch the TV show Mountain Men, so I was interested to know more about one of the guys who is featured in it. Eustace Conway is intriguing and complicated, but the author certainly put her biases in the book. Over and over she pointed out that he has to be in control and that he alienates people because of that. I skipped over a lot of the book bc it was repetitious, however there's no doubt that Eustace is a compelling figure and all the things he's accomplished are pretty amazing.
    • 3/5
      Sometimes it is hard to separate a character from the book itself and I found this to be one of those books. Eustace Conway is a very interesting, inspirational, skilled, contradictory, and deeply flawed person. His story is well worth telling and is captivating for all sorts of reasons. He is a "back to nature, living of the earth and sharing how everyone could be doing this" kind of person. Unlike others who want to do this he actually does which is impressive and I applaud him for the skills he has and his interest in sharing them. At the end of the book I just want to shake some sense into him but that might be just me. I want him to look in a mirror and see his own flaws and accept them, then maybe he can accept them in others. My main complaint about the book is the writing and the almost dreamy quality of some of the scenes that were put there because they sound good but get contradicted one paragraph later. It was still a good book but it could have been much better.
    • 4/5
      Great listen and insight into a true pioneer of the modern world.
    • 5/5
      She can’t write a bad book. So interesting and human and lovely.
    • 3/5
      More like 3.5 stars...this was an interesting read, but it could easily have been 100-150 pages. There was a lot of repetition, which made her point about eustace conway much less concise.
    • 2/5
      I'm fairly certain that I could not stand to be in the presence of Eustace Conway. From reading this book and watching videos of his interviews, I would think that he and I would be at odds. His values are skewed from mine and that is the most disappointing aspect of learning about such a man. He takes a fragment of my individualist, libertarian ideals and twists them into a "my way or the highway" way of spreading the propaganda of his legend. But this is not a review of Conway's substantial character flaws. This is a review of the book written by Elizabeth Gilbert.

      I'm not sure if the author's approach to this was supposed to be objective reporter (she definitely wasn't that), biased friend, or impassioned disciple. She seemed to be an annoying combination of the second two options. It was hard to take Gilbert's narrative seriously when she was relying heavily on Conway himself for a good portion of the source material.

      It was a little ironic that the author mentioned Congressman Davy Crockett and how he wrote an autobiography of great outdoor adventures and daring (conveniently timed with his political campaign). This is about as reliable as the amazing things that Benjamin Franklin said about himself and I couldn't help but realize that Gilbert was doing the same service for Conway. Whether Conway is incapable of writing intelligently or just enjoys having his story told is beyond my ability to discern.

      I can say that most of this book was hard to read because it read like fan-girl Gilbert had gotten her dream assignment of writing about one of her personal heroes. The gushiness and obvious high esteem that the author held for Conway made it difficult to believe that I was reading about the real man (rather than the idealicized version). There was a particular passage in the book that described a birthday card to Conway from his dad. It was overly sappy and dramatic and seemed like the author was manufacturing something more meaningful than the actual occurrence. There was another such over-done bit of drama near the very end when Conway was facing a deer or elk and started shouting feelings of love towards the creature. So what?

      At any rate, this book was pretty much a bust and that's two strikes against Elizabeth Gilbert. Frankly, I don't intend to give her a chance for strike three because my time is precious to me and I have hundreds of other books on my list to read. The only part of this book that I liked was when Gilbert challenged Conway just to live as he teaches and stop messing with the idea of changing the world. She basically called him out as a fact and he begrudgingly admitted that he had to put on a mountain man act to get the message out. He is a phony and an attention-seeker. Gilbert portrays Conway as a man of action be he goes out of his way to do so as a public spectacle. I don't admire him and I can't respect her admiration of him.
    • 5/5
      a wonderful portrait. thank you Elizabeth for piecing it all together so beautifully.
    • 4/5
      Interesting look at a complicated man. This is not Thoreau or even Bradford Angler two nature writers I really love to read about. I truly don't know if I'd want to meet Eustace but one thing I do know is I'd never want to be his son unless he received lots of therapy. The way he treats women is the way his father treated his mother. His message about minimal living deserves attention.
    • 2/5
      It is a well written description of this man and the relationships he has with people and the world. I think he has Asperger's syndrome, as did his father and maternal grandfather. Probably his sister does, too.

      It doesn't seem to have any point other than say "This is an interesting person I know.", though.

      I don't regret reading it, but was a little disappointed to find that it really didn't seem to go anywhere. In the end, he is a little world-weary, but still seems to be incapable of dealing with people in any way tht makes him happy.
    • 3/5
      This book is the true story of Eustace Conway, a man who has been living a self-sufficient lifestyle on Turtle Island, his 1,000 acre property in Appalachia. Throughout the years he has hosted many school groups, apprentices, and other interested individuals on his land. He also tours around the country teaching kids and others about the skills of surviving in the wilderness. The author spends a significant about of time with Conway on his property, working alongside him and learning about his philosophy and way of life. She also interviews many of his family members, ex-girlfriends, friends, and former apprentices.

      I had a lot of strong and conflicted feelings while reading this book, so this will be a long review. I respect much of what Conway has done and agree with many of his philosophies. I admire his sustainable lifestyle and would love to have all the knowledge he does about surviving in the wilderness. He is not just talking about how he thinks the world should be; he is actually living in accordance with his values. He knows that a truly sustainable lifestyle requires a lot of hard work and isn’t always comfortable. I deeply admire his authenticity in this respect.

      That being said, I have very little respect for Conway as a person. He is narcissistic, condescending, and constantly playing the victim. He thinks he has all the answers in life and it is his sacred duty to impart this knowledge upon the lowly commoners, being fully aware that these commoners will never achieve his level of greatness.

      Conway professes a belief in interconnectedness, yet fails to allow anyone else to be connected to his vision in any real way. He drives a lot of people out of his life with his stubbornness and high expectations. The apprentices who come to learn from him rarely stay for the amount of time to which they have committed. He has impossibly high standards for them and doesn’t seem to appreciate them, so they generally quit early. He is domineering and verbally abusive to the women in his life, berating them for any choice or action that doesn’t fit in with his vision. One of his ex-girlfriends commented that he doesn’t let good people feel good about themselves, which I would say is a very accurate assessment.

      Conway sees himself as a misunderstood visionary who has risen above the evils of American society to become the only authentic human being. His journals are full of rants about how clueless and misguided everyone he meets is and how hard it is to be the only enlightened being among the senseless masses. He blames all of life’s frustrations and struggles on others, never fully realizing that maybe he needs to make some changes in his own life.

      Towards the end of the book, one of Conway’s brothers states how he often thinks, “God, wouldn’t it be great to have a brother with all the skills and interests of Eustace, but was humble, too?” Exactly!! Conway is doing so many good and admirable things with his life, but it is so hard to appreciate it because he is such a narcissist.

      I struggled with how many stars to give this book. Despite my ill-feelings towards Conway, or more likely because of them, I couldn’t put the book down. I’ll reluctantly admit that I took a fairly significant amount of pleasure in casting judgments upon a man who seemed to thrive upon judging others. I guess I didn’t learn my lesson from Conway about the importance of accepting others with all of their faults and imperfections and refraining from judgments. The book just leaves me asking a lot of questions about how to live a consistent lifestyle with true respect for all the life around me.
    • 4/5
      I found [The Last American Man] to be fascinating on many levels.  It is a wonderfully told biographical story that describes Eustace Conway's  world from both a micro perspective of his personal life and relationships as well as a macro perspective of the American cultural icon of a frontiersman.  [[Elizabeth Gilbert]] examines the personality of frontiersmen and addresses the way these personality traits contributed to the development and expansion of the United States.  Some of the mythical stories are perhaps "debunked" or perhaps just told more honestly, such as those of Davy Crockett and Daniel Boone.  Eustace Conway is compared to and considered as a modern version of this icon and lives much of his life in the woods of North Carolina, learning to survive and thrive by killing and eating his own food, making his own clothes, etc.  His micro story is that of an abused child finding escape.  For readers interested in the psychohistory of the U.S. this is a must read.  Is Conway driven by post traumatic stress disorder of which he has many symptoms, or perhaps bipolar disorder?  This would be a great text for a psych class to analyze and diagnose Conway with detailed descriptions of his personal relationships and interactions. At the same time, if that is poppycock to you, it's just a great adventure story of living in the woods, as well as riding a horse across the continental United States. This is one of my all time favorites!
    • 3/5
      A true story, Eustace Conway is born in North Carolina into a family where his father is extremely hard on him and a mother that doesn't squeal over the critters he brings home during his childhood. He eventually sets out to live in the wilderness. The book goes on to talk about Elizabeth Gilbert's own personal encounters as well as stories that Eustace has shared with her. He believes in living off the land, not using electricity, etc. He is definitely not a hermit, he believes in teaching others survival skills on his land in the mountains of North Carolina.My biggest complaint is that while the story is extremely captivating, her writing style is a big turn-off. It is auto-biographical but she also includes herself in as a character at times.
    • 4/5
      Elizabeth Gilbert's story of Eustace Conway, whose idealistic compulsion to live completely off the land at an early age captures the imagination of countless Americans, is a most interesting book. Gilbert clearly has a deep affection for this compelling and complex man. And yet the story she tells of Conway's toxic and damaging relationship with his father and his inability to sustain relationships with the scores of people drawn to him and to his small 1000 acre farm in North Carolina, is telling. A complex story of a difficult and interesting man, well told. This book is probably not what you were expecting, and is all the better for it.
    • 4/5
      This book left me wanting immediately to know what has since happened to Eustace Conway. Has he managed to marry his uncompromising idealism with the realities that seemed to be weighing on him enough to finally slow him down? Has he continued the dream or left it to commune with the nature only he understands? Has he found lasting friendships? I enjoyed this book from cover to cover. It's rich with insight on several levels. The main subject is our increasing remoteness from nature (we now think in boxes rather than circles), but there are several equally ponderous sub-themes. Like many real-life heroes, Conway sought to escape his own upbringing, yet found himself modeling that bad parts in other ways. This is a story about man's place in the world, man's need to challenge the world, and man's need to reconcile his own self with his earliest aspirations about that journey.