Rachel Carson and the Power of Queer Love

Lida Maxwell is Professor of Political Science & Women's, Gender, & Sexuality Studies at Boston University and the author of Insurgent Truth: Chelsea Manning and the Politics of Outsider Truth-Telling (2019), among other books.

1. Queer Love in Southport 2. Wondrous Revelation 3. Loving Use 4. Environmental Desire 5. Heteronormativity Is a Climate Issue Acknowledgments Notes Index

"This wonderfully insightful consideration of Rachel Carson's loves reveals the enduring-and urgent-possibilities within her brilliant work."-Michelle Nijhuis, author of Beloved Beasts "In this stirring, often revelatory account of Rachel Carson's queer relationship with Dorothy Freeman, Maxwell challenges us to ask for more-more pleasure, more beauty, more wonder, more mystery-for ourselves and the earth."-Sabrina Imbler, author of How Far the Light Reaches "It's not an exaggeration to say that Maxwell's work completely changed how I move through my daily life: who I love, how I love, and the way I think about the non-human world around me."-Liza Yeager, radio producer and writer "It is no longer enough to recycle or compost, or to shift our consumption to less energy-intensive items; we need to desire otherwise and reshape our cities and pastimes to excite other desires. This book offers an unusual and frequently moving reading of Rachel Carson to shift the tenor of climate writing today." -Lisa Disch, author of Making Constituencies "Maxwell makes crucial interventions into the study of ecological destruction by placing heteronormativity at its center." --Elisabeth Anker, author of Ugly Freedoms "Reading Carson and Freeman's letters, Maxwell declares, have taught her that 'queer love can change the world.' An impassioned analysis."-Kirkus Reviews "Rachel Carson's environmentalist tract Silent Spring was profoundly influenced by her romantic relationship with her neighbor Dorothy Freeman, according to this bracing treatise.... A stimulating blend of biography and queer theory, this intrigues."-Publishers Weekly "Rachel Carson and the Power of Queer Love promotes harmony with nature through an impassioned fusion of biography, cultural critique, and environmental advocacy."-Rebecca Foster, Foreword Reviews "But the point of the book isn't that we should take individual action-it's about broader structures and narratives. Maxwell's book holds lessons for all readers about acknowledging, and then escaping, the structures that ensnare us."-Brooke Borel, Scientific American