The Green Hour

When Alison Townsend purchased her first house, in south-central Wisconsin, she put down roots where she never imagined settling. To understand how she came to live in the Midwest, she takes a journey through personal landscapes, considering the impact of geography at pivotal moments in her life, vividly illuminating the role of mourning, homesickness, and relocations.

With sparkling, lyrical prose, The Green Hour undulates effortlessly through time like a red-winged blackbird. Inspired by five beloved settings—eastern Pennsylvania, Vermont, California, western Oregon, and the spot atop the Wisconsin hill where she now resides—Townsend considers the role that place plays in shaping the self. She reveals the ways that a fresh perspective or new experience in any environment can incite wonder, build unexpected connections, and provide solace or salvation.

Mesmerizingly attentive to nature—its beauty, its fragility, and its redeeming powers—she asks what it means to live in community with wilderness and to allow our identities to be shaped by our interactions with it: our story as its story.