Melissa Holbrook Pierson
Encyclopedia
Melissa Holbrook Pierson, born December 14, 1957 (age 54) in Akron, Ohio
, is a writer and essayist of non-fiction. She is a life-long motorcycle enthusiast and this is reflected in many of her books. Her works are often explorations of personal experience, extended into general social commentary and history.
When asked in an interview, "Do you consider yourself a travel writer, a kind of “place writer,” a nature writer, or—" Pierson answered, "All of those things. I don’t think of myself as fitting into a category. But I had to be careful in all of my books not to repeat things, because I have these ideas, and though the subjects were disparate, the same idea would come up through different portals. " The Place You Love is Gone was described by Anthony Swofford
in The New York Times Book Review
as, "the punk rock girl sitting in the rear pews at church, offering a counternarrative: what she says about the patriarchy and the raping of the land (and the Indians and dairy farmers and denizens of small towns in upstate New York) is true but the priests (elected politicians and water managers and ambitious city planners) wish her parents would drag the girl home; the organ player pipes louder in order to drown the punk's anti-establishment rant."
Akron, Ohio
Akron , is the fifth largest city in the U.S. state of Ohio and the county seat of Summit County. It is located in the Great Lakes region approximately south of Lake Erie along the Little Cuyahoga River. As of the 2010 census, the city had a population of 199,110. The Akron Metropolitan...
, is a writer and essayist of non-fiction. She is a life-long motorcycle enthusiast and this is reflected in many of her books. Her works are often explorations of personal experience, extended into general social commentary and history.
When asked in an interview, "Do you consider yourself a travel writer, a kind of “place writer,” a nature writer, or—" Pierson answered, "All of those things. I don’t think of myself as fitting into a category. But I had to be careful in all of my books not to repeat things, because I have these ideas, and though the subjects were disparate, the same idea would come up through different portals. " The Place You Love is Gone was described by Anthony Swofford
Anthony Swofford
Anthony Swofford is a writer and former United States Marine known for being the author of the book Jarhead, published in 2003, which is primarily based on his accounts of various situations encountered in the first Gulf War. This memoir was the basis of the 2005 movie of the same name, directed...
in The New York Times Book Review
The New York Times Book Review
The New York Times Book Review is a weekly paper-magazine supplement to The New York Times in which current non-fiction and fiction books are reviewed. It is one of the most influential and widely read book review publications in the industry. The offices are located near Times Square in New York...
as, "the punk rock girl sitting in the rear pews at church, offering a counternarrative: what she says about the patriarchy and the raping of the land (and the Indians and dairy farmers and denizens of small towns in upstate New York) is true but the priests (elected politicians and water managers and ambitious city planners) wish her parents would drag the girl home; the organ player pipes louder in order to drown the punk's anti-establishment rant."
External links
- Blog Ostensibly about author's dog, but includes many topics.