The Last American Man (36 page)

Acknowledgments

I would like to thank the extraordinary Conway family for their openness and hospitality during this project, and particularly
Eustace Conway for his courage in letting me proceed with this work unfettered.

It has been an honor to know you all, and I have tried to honor you here.

There have been many people in Eustace’s life—past and present—who gave generously of their time to help me formulate the
ideas behind this book. For their tolerance in being incessantly interviewed, I thank Donna Henry, Christian Kaltrider, Shannon
Nunn,Valarie Spratlin, CuChullaine O’Reilly, Lorraine Johnson, Randy Cable, Steve French, Carolyn Hauck, Carla Gover, Barbara
Locklear, Hoy Moretz, Nathan and Holly Roarke, the Hicks family, Jack Bibbo, Don Bruton, Matt Niemas, Siegal Kiewe, Warren
Kimsey, Alan Stout, Ed Bumann, Pop Hollingsworth, Patience Harrison, Dave Reckford, Scott Taylor, Ashley Clutter, and Candice
Covington. And a special note of thanks to Kathleen and Preston Roberts, who are not only lovely and gracious people, but
who let Eustace and me sit on their porch and drink beer and shoot off guns all night long. (“I never fired a gun when I was
drunk before,” Eustace said, and Preston shouted, “And you call yourself
Southern
?”)

I am grateful to the authors of the many books and histories that have guided this endeavor. Among others, I found inspiration
in John Mack Faragher’s biography of Daniel Boone, David Roberts’s biography of Kit Carson, James Atkins Shatford’s biography
of Davy Crockett, David McCullough’s biography of the young Teddy Roosevelt, Rod Phillips’s analysis of forest Beatniks, and
Stephen Ambrose’s compelling account of Lewis and Clark’s journey to the Pacific.

Anybody interested in reading more about American utopias should get Timothy Miller’s encyclopedic
The 60’s Communes: Hippies and Beyond
, and anybody interested in a surprisingly funny book that happens to be about American utopias should hunt down a copy of
Mark Halloway’s brilliant
Heavens on Earth: Utopian Communities in America,
1680–1880
. The statistics quoted in Chapter Seven on the decline of males come from
The Decline of Males
, by Lionel Tiger. I also owe thanks to R. W. B. Lewis for his wise study
The American Adam
, and to Richard Slotkin for his equally wise
The Fatal Environment
. And my bottomless thanks (and eternal admiration) go to the living library that is Doug Brinkley, for telling me to read
all these books.

Thanks also go to Powell’s Bookstore of Portland, Oregon, for having—when I was seeking books about the impressions of nineteenth-century
European visitors to America—an entire shelf labeled “Impressions of 19th Century European Visitors to America.” There is
no better bookstore in America, and this proves it.

I am fortunate to have great friends who are also great readers and editors. For their help and valuable assistance in editing
various versions of this book, I thank David Cashion, Reggie Ollen, Andrew Corsello, John Morse, John Gilbert, Susan Bowen
(the speed-reading Georgia Peach), and John Hodgman (who invented just for me the essential new editing abbreviation CWRBS,
meaning “Cut the Will Rogers Bullshit”). I thank John Platter, who found the strength to read an early draft of this book
in his final days of life, and whom I miss terribly every time I walk to my mailbox and remember that I will never receive
another letter from him.

I thank Kassie Evashevski, Sarah Chalfant, Paul Slovak, and the hugely incredible Frances Apt for their sure-footed guidance.
I thank Art Cooper at
GQ
for believing me four years ago when I said, “Trust me— you just gotta let me write a profile about this guy.” I thank Michael
Cooper for saying long ago, when I was in doubt about writing the book, “Wouldn’t you rather make a mistake by
doing
something than make a mistake by
not
doing something?” Again, I thank my big sister Catherine for her preternatural genius about American history and for her steadfast
support. Again, I thank my dear friend Deborah for being open twenty-four hours a day to dispense her wisdom on the human
psyche. This book would be virtually barren of ideas without the inspiration of these two amazing women.

There are not enough thanks in the world to offer the Ucross Foundation for giving me 22,000 acres of privacy in the middle
of Wyoming during what I will probably always remember as the most important thirty days of my life.

And lastly, there are not enough ways in the world for me to say this:

Big Love

A NOTE ON THE AUTHOR

Elizabeth Gilbert is the author of a short story collection,

Pilgrims
(a finalist for the Pen/Hemingway Award), a

novel,
Stern Men
, and a book of non-fiction,
The Last

American Man
(nominated for the National Book

Award and a
New York Times
Notable Book for 2002).

For many years she wrote for American
GQ
, where she

received three National Magazine Award nominations

for feature writing. Her most recent book,
Eat, Pray,

Love
– a memoir about the year she spent travelling

the world after a bad divorce – is an international

bestseller, with over five million copies in print.

Elizabeth Gilbert lives in New Jersey.