In California’s far north it’s good to be a morning person—like Francesca. Nature awakens with rude calamities and she must ride them out. I envy her equanimity, and the summer sojourn I conjured for her in those rowdy, remarkable mountains.
A back-to-the-land bohemian and her eco-activist friends clash with locals during a 1976 timber war in Northern California.
Some Greater Awakening
About Jessica
On Wintu land, under drifting smoke from a lumber mill incinerator down the street, my folks raised me to appreciate trees, birds, mountains, and rivers. I covered Earth First! as a student journalist. As a filmmaker, I documented threats to sacred lands around the world.
What a rare pleasure it is to write about my own home ground, with its ravaged beauty and heart-rending history. Here and everywhere, generous people hold the line against ecological indifference. They are my inspiration for this novel.
“A love letter to the 1970s.”
—Chris Walker, cover artist
“A page-turner and a joy, Jessica Abbe’s wise, committed comic novel about 1970s activism and the environment takes on new relevance with the recent, brutal California fires.”
—Diane Johnson, author, screenwriter, and finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the National Book Award
“As a fledgling environmentalist in the ‘70s I was well aware of the ‘Forest Wars’—the battles throughout much of the west to save Old Growth trees. That much I remembered. Much of what I’d forgotten was rekindled while reading Jessica Abbe’s novel, Some Greater Awakening. I’ve always loved how fiction not only becomes my access to the past but enlivens it. Where people like Francesca, the main protagonist in Abbe’s book with whom I fell in love, take on the burden of turning history into a living, ever-present story.”
—Brooke Williams, author, Encountering Dragonfly
“Power books lead you deeper into what counts even in an increasingly crazy world. Some Greater Awakening is just what the world needs. The lead character successfully confronts societal patriarchy, the lack of common sense, and insufficient camaraderie. What emerges is a distinct feeling that like-minded, re-tribalized collective hope can indeed be formed. People of nature – that’s the destiny we all deserve. With the delight of Jessica Abbe’s prose, humor, and incite this novel emerges as a tool for greater good.”
—Randy Hayes, Rainforest Action Network Co-Founder; Director, Foundation Earth
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