A major new essay collection from the National Book Award-winning author of Arctic Dreams.
UNTITLED ESSAY COLLECTION
by Barry Lopez
Random House, Fall 2021
These new and collected essays from the acclaimed naturalist Barry Lopez—his final undertaking—represent the culmination of a lifetime’s thought in service of our relationship with wilderness, and with each other. Here, his collected essays offer a unifying vision; his drive to reconnect the cultural and the natural is unflinching, and major, never-published pieces offer profound commentary on topics that veer from the autobiographical—his abuse as a child—to the evolution of his views on the untamed. His classic prose, like the arctic landscape he elegized, remains as ever: “spare, balanced, extended…” It has been said that Barry Lopez understood what we gain when we accept the enormity of what we don’t know; these essays hinge on that tantalizing concept.
Barry Lopez (1945-2020) was the author of thirteen books of essays, short stories, and nonfiction. He was a recipient of the National Book Award, the Award in Literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters, a Guggenheim Fellowship, and numerous other literary and cultural honors and awards. His highly acclaimed books include Horizon, Arctic Dreams, Winter Count, and Of Wolves and Men, for which he received the John Burroughs and Christopher medals.
Raquel Willis is a powerful woman. But growing up as a young boy in the South made being herself almost impossible. In this moving and provocative memoir, Raquel relives the many risks she faced in her struggle to become a fierce advocate for her community—and the powerful woman—that she is today. Today, she is known as a transgender trailblazer, both for work with the Transgender Law Center and speaker at the National Women’s March. She offers intimate reflections on masculinity and blackness, informed by a tumultuous relationship with her father. From a childhood built in opposition to expectations, all the way through her transition at a flagship Southern university, Raquel demonstrates that her story is but one thread in the larger tapestry of Black trans American life; a tapestry that has never truly been chronicled from this millennial, Southern perspective.
Four months after his unarmed friend Ed was shot and killed by a white man in a Brooklyn parking lot, VZ doesn’t know what he wants to do or what he believes. He’s got some kind of feelings for Diamond, the cute girl at work, and he might want to finish the video game that Ed designed and enter it into a contest that Ed was determined to win. Go to protests about Ed’s murder? Nah, that’s his friend Jackson’s thing. But when Singer, the man who killed Ed, ends up dead—in the exact same spot that Ed was shot—VZ has to step up, because Jackson is the cops’ number one suspect.
After the events of 
Robert Mazur spent years undercover infiltrating the Medellín Cartel’s criminal hierarchy. The dirty bankers and businessmen he befriended – some of whom still shape power across the globe – knew him as Bob Musella, a wealthy, mob-connected big shot living the good life. Together they partied in $1,000-per-night hotel suites, drank bottles of the world’s finest champagne, drove Rolls-Royce convertibles, and flew in private jets. But under Mazur’s Armani suits and in his Renwick briefcase, recorders whirred silently, capturing the damning evidence of their crimes.