Review_NONFICTIONReview_NONFICTION
42 PUBLISHERS WEEKLY ■ MARCH 8, 2021
A 1921 photo of Henry Ford (l.) and Thomas Edison, from Thomas Hager’s Electric City , an in-depth
history of their efforts to build a futuristic city in Alabama (reviewed on p. 45).Mercury Rising: John Glenn,
John Kennedy, and the New
Battleground of the Cold War
Jeff Shesol. Norton, $28.95 (400p) ISBN 978-
1-324-00324-3
Historian Shesol (Supreme Power:
Franklin Roosevelt vs. The Supreme Court)
recreates in this entertaining and deeply
researched account the early days of the
U.S. space program, culminating with
astronaut John Glenn becoming the first
American to orbit Earth in February- Shesol sketches Glenn’s childhood
in New Concord, Ohio; service as a fighter
pilot in WWII and Korea; and breaking
of the transcontinental speed record in - One of seven “astronaut volunteers”
selected for Project Mercury, Glenn served
as backup to Alan Shepard and Gus
Grissom for the first suborbital flights
before being picked for the Friendship 7
mission to orbit Earth. Shesol provides
plenty of historical and political context,
including the Soviet Union’s early lead
in the space race, the Bay of Pigs, and
escalating tensions in Berlin and
Southeast Asia, but the book achieves
liftoff in its extended depiction of
Glenn’s nearly five-hour flight, vividly
recreating his perspective (“As the sun
began to set, it seemed to flatten into the
horizon, almost to melt, pooling liquid
light across the curve of the Earth”) and
documenting fears that a technical issue
would cause his capsule to burn up on
reentry into the atmosphere. Readers
will savor the hair-raising ride. (June)
Swimming to the Top of the Tide:
Finding Life Where Land and
Water Meet
Patricia Hanlon. Bellevue, $17.99 trade paper
(224p) ISBN 978-1-942658-87-0
Hanlon, an artist and longtime coastal
Massachusetts resident, tours New
England’s Great Marsh in her charming
debut, easily capturing the natural
beauty and geological history of the
watershed along the Massachusetts and
New Hampshire coast. The first part of
Hanlon’s survey sees her and her husband
“exploring the same landscapes over and
over”: after her children grew up and left
home, Hanlon writes, she and her husbandbrowsed the beaches, quarries, and salt-
water creeks that form the marsh, and she
turns the quotidian details of marriage and
family life into a lyrical investigation of
“something bigger and more complex
than oneself” as she and her husband
“made a pact with each other to swim
every time we possibly could.” The second
part sheds light on such environmental
concerns as habitat loss and overfishing,
and interviews with scientists (such as a
marine biologist who studies nitrogen
runoff) enrich the story without breaking
the flow. Merging leisurely seaside adven-
ture with ecological sensibilities, Hanlon
delivers a lyrical ode to a changing environ-
ment: “Places become real when they are
loved,” she writes. This is bound to please
both environmentalists and anyone in
search of a breezy dip into nature. (June)Brat: An ’80s Story
Andrew McCarthy. Grand Central, $28 (240p)
ISBN 978-1-5387-5427-6
The star of seminal 1980s coming-of-
age movies St. Elmo’s Fire and Pretty in
Pink looks back on a decade that was more
angsty for him than for his characters in
this heartfelt memoir. Actor McCarthy
(The Longest Way Home) revisits many rau-
cous showbiz indignities—“my first day
on the set of a feature film was spent inbra and panties”—and delves into the
gnawing anxieties behind his heart-
throb exterior: a sullen aloofness that
masked his fear at auditions; spiraling
alcoholism; loneliness in an L.A., where
he “felt exposed and vulnerable on the
deserted streets”; and alienation on the
coked-up set of Less Than Zero, where
“the mood on the shoot turned from dark
to nefarious” with a script “full of hate
and self-degradation.” McCarthy writes
evocatively of his insecurities and dys-
functions—“I felt as if I existed behind a
layer of opaque plexiglass... which would
only clear when I took a drink”—but
also of the high points when he felt “the
simple joy at being there, at being alive
and young” in front of the camera.
McCarthy is clear-eyed and unsparing
about Hollywood but takes the emotional
intensity of the actor’s craft and life seri-
ously. The result is a riveting portrait of
the artist as a young man. Photos. (May)★ Finding the Mother Tree:
Discovering How the Forest Is
Wired for Intelligence and Healing
Suzanne Simard. Knopf, $27.95 (368p)
ISBN 978-0-525656-09-8
Forest ecology professor Simard artfully
blends science with memoir in her eye-
opening debut on the “startling secrets”Nonfiction