The Sprawl: Reconsidering the Weird American Suburbs

by Jason Diamond Narrated by Peter Lerman

Overview

For decades the suburbs have been where art happens despite: despite the conformity, the emptiness, the sameness. Time and again, the story is one of gems formed under pressure and that resentment of the suburbs is the key ingredient for creative transcendence. But what if, contrary to that, the suburb has actually been an incubator for distinctly American art, as positively and as surely as in any other cultural hothouse? Mixing personal experience, cultural reportage, and history while rejecting clichés and pieties and these essays stretch across the country in an effort to show that this uniquely American milieu deserves another look.

Editorial Reviews

From the Publisher

Praise for The Sprawl

An NPR Favorite Book of 2020
A Booklist Best New Book 2020
An Esquire Best Summer Book of 2020
A Town & Country Best Summer Book of 2020
An Electric Literature Best Nonfiction of 2020
A Planetizen Top Urban Planning Book of 2020
A Refinery29 Best Summer Book of 2020

“A humble and curious must-read.” —Booklist, starred review

“A warm, engaging reminder that places quickly written off can be the birthplace of the next big thing.” —Adrienne Westenfeld, Esquire

“Using personal experience, history, and cultural reportage, Diamond finds these tidy, bland environs have produced or inspired some of the country’s finest artists.” —Amy Sutherland, The Boston Globe

“Part melancholic meditation on the meaning of the suburbs, part encyclopedic survey of the suburbs in pop culture references, and part futurist reimagining of the possibilities of suburbia. At its core, it’s both a paean to the place that formed Diamond and a wistful epitaph to where that childhood was discarded.” —Isabel Slone, Hazlitt

“Excellent. . . . Diamond’s omnivorous and expansive sense allows him to weave history, popular culture, literature, film, and his own experiences into a revelatory take on suburban life.” —Nick Ripatrazone, The Millions

“It’s the rare work of cultural criticism with a purview that encompasses William Gibson, Celeste Ng, and Anthony Bourdain—and it’s all the stronger for it.” —Tobias Carroll, Literary Hub

“Diamond is a keen cultural critic leveraging a deep reservoir of knowledge. The Sprawl leads us on a journey through the promise of suburbia while expertly peeling back the curtain.” —Ian MacAllen, Chicago Review of Books

“Exceptionally smart and wildly fun at the same time.” —Hillary Kelly, Vulture

“Funny, smart, and heavy on pop culture allusions. . . . Where this book really excels is in identifying certain moods that relate to suburban America.” —Joseph Houlihan, Rain Taxi Review

”This is a warm and thoughtful book that doesn’t just coast on beauty and nostalgia without challenging both.” —Hanif Abdurraqib

“Thoughtful, well-researched, and beautifully rendered. The Sprawl is a necessary cultural analysis for understanding who we are as a nation and what we will become.” —Lyz Lenz

“A child of the suburbs myself, I devoured this smart, probing, and deeply human meditation on what it means to be promised comfort, and what it feels like to tear yourself apart trying to escape it.” —Amanda Petrusich

Kirkus Reviews

2020-04-27
A scion of the suburbs considers how housing shapes destiny.

Suburbia was a largely postwar phenomenon, born of the need to provide homes for returning veterans eager to start families and trading on a long-standing dream that was hitherto reserved only for the rich—namely, “a place outside the city.” This dream was initially reserved, too, for a special class of people: whites for whom low-cost, low-interest loans were readily available courtesy of the Federal Housing Administration. That has changed, writes Diamond, who wrote of suburban life in his 2016 book Searching for John Hughes. Now there are suburbs made up of people of diverse ethnicities, albeit usually segregated. More than half of Americans live in suburbs, a fact that may surprise young city dwellers; if the countryside is ever emptier, the rings of settlements outside the cores of places such as Chicago, New York, and Los Angeles continue to grow. Diamond is interested in demographics but not exclusively. As the narrative progresses, the author becomes increasingly eloquent about such things as pop music—for much pop is driven by suburbanites, who share a “belief that you’re doing something bigger than the place you’re from”—literature as written by the likes of Dave Eggers and Jonathan Lethem, and film such as, yes, John Hughes’ oeuvre and Sofia Coppola’s interpretation of The Virgin Suicides. Clearly, Diamond has given a lot of thought to the “faux-pastoral” nature of the suburbs and their tendency to resist the formation of true communities. If the cultural aspects of his narrative tend to be a touch repetitive, the point is well taken, as is his thought that now-dying shopping malls across North America (cue Arcade Fire) might well be converted to community centers, “making the ones that remain into places that serve a greater purpose.”

A literate meditation on clipped-lawn places easily taken for granted but that well deserve such reflection.

Product Details

BN ID:	2940177545332
Publisher:	Tantor Audio
Publication date:	11/17/2020
Edition description:	Unabridged

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