A Field Guide to the Subterranean
Reclaiming the Deep Earth and our Deepest Selves
Published on 10. June 2025
224 pages
978-1-64009-702-5 (ISBN)
Description
A radically inventive excavation of one man's life and our relationship to the earth by the critically acclaimed author of The Great Floodgates of the Wonderworld
Justin Hocking grew up in a part of Colorado where so many things happened beneath the surface-mining exploits, underground nuclear testing just thirty miles from his family's home, and geothermal activity that heats one of the world's largest hot spring pools. His homelife, too, was plagued by hidden patterns of abuse and virulent masculinity. A Field Guide to the Subterranean charts the author's lifelong process of unearthing the past and reclaiming his own identity and connection to the natural world.
How might we transform our traumas into deeper care for one another and the landscapes that sustain us? How do we transcend the mythos of the rugged American male so rooted in extraction and exploitation? And how far can we move beyond the self in a memoir? Hocking explores these and other vital questions by combining personal introspection with expansive narratives that examine geology, ecology, gender theory, mining history, labor rights, and even skateboarding.
Abundant with historical research and teeming with birdlife-and ranging in location from remote caves and mountains to secluded surf breaks in Costa Rica-A Field Guide to the Subterranean heralds a boldly original and kaleidoscopic approach to the genres of memoir and nature writing.
Justin Hocking grew up in a part of Colorado where so many things happened beneath the surface-mining exploits, underground nuclear testing just thirty miles from his family's home, and geothermal activity that heats one of the world's largest hot spring pools. His homelife, too, was plagued by hidden patterns of abuse and virulent masculinity. A Field Guide to the Subterranean charts the author's lifelong process of unearthing the past and reclaiming his own identity and connection to the natural world.
How might we transform our traumas into deeper care for one another and the landscapes that sustain us? How do we transcend the mythos of the rugged American male so rooted in extraction and exploitation? And how far can we move beyond the self in a memoir? Hocking explores these and other vital questions by combining personal introspection with expansive narratives that examine geology, ecology, gender theory, mining history, labor rights, and even skateboarding.
Abundant with historical research and teeming with birdlife-and ranging in location from remote caves and mountains to secluded surf breaks in Costa Rica-A Field Guide to the Subterranean heralds a boldly original and kaleidoscopic approach to the genres of memoir and nature writing.
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06/2026
Counterpoint
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06/2025
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Person
JUSTIN HOCKING is the author of The Great Floodgates of the Wonderworld. He served as executive director of Portland's Independent Publishing Resource Center (IPRC) from 2006 to mid-2014 and is a recipient of the Willamette Writers Humanitarian Award for his work in publishing, writing, and teaching, and was named as one of "Ten Writers Who Made Portland" by Willamette Week. His nonfiction and fiction have appeared in The Rumpus, Orion, The Normal School, Tin House, Poets & Writers Magazine, and elsewhere. He works as an assistant professor in the critical studies MA program at Pacific Northwest College of Art and as a full-time faculty member in nonfiction and publishing in the undergraduate and MFA writing programs at Portland State University. He is the recipient of an Oregon Literary Fellowship for fiction and four Regional Arts and Culture Council Project Grant awards. He lives in Portland, Oregon.
