Ground Truth - by Ruby McConnell (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

FINALIST for the 2021 Oregon Book Award. Rooted in the Pacific Northwest, the essays in Ruby McConnell's Ground Truth: A Geological Survey of a Life cover the vast terrain of this region - from volcanoes to city parks, the eroding shorelines along the Oregon coast, badlands, lush forests, and city parks. Combining her background as a registered geologist, McConnell's essays also weave in personal landscapes composed of grief, loss, and optimism for the future of our environment. "The Pacific Northwest that you see today is the result of forty years of radical changes in the culture and economics of what was once a resource-extraction and agriculture-driven region. They are changes so fundamental in nature and scope...that, for those of us from this place, will always be marked by the cataclysmic eruptions of Mt. St. Helens on May 18, 1980." --Ruby McConnell In this collection of 17 essays, geologist Ruby McConnell opens her part natural history, part memoir-in-essays about the Pacific Northwest with the cataclysmic eruption of Mt. St. Helens in May of 1980. She was two years old. "Everything that I have stood direct witness to since, everything I know about this place, happened after we watched the mountain crumble... I was born to a region digging out." In poignant and wide-ranging essays that include the wondrous annual return of salmon, "the lifeblood of the Pacific Northwest people," to working at an elementary school evaluating soil and wondering how many kids have cancer, Ground Truth is an extended eulogy to a rapidly changing land, population and society awakening to the realities of logging, climate change, land-use and pollution. The book illuminates the central role of landscapes in our ideas of home and self despite the growing disconnect between modern lifestyle and the environment. McConnell's timely and significant work reveals how the landscapes we inhabit can also help us better understand ourselves.

Review Quotes

Clear-eyed, kind-hearted, and authoritative...by turns wry, gripping, and unflinchingly honest. -Mary DeMocker, author of The Parent's Guide to Climate Revolution

I appreciate how [McConnell] has linked geological events and time scales into the story of her life span to date...the broader human life messages that she describes reach far beyond any arbitrary geographic boundaries. -Wendell "Duff" Duffield, U.S. Geological Survey (retired)

Ground Truth is about the deep history of Oregon and the Pacific Northwest, a history built on geography rooted in geology. And, like geology, it is full of gems... -Chet Orloff, Executive Director Emeritus, Oregon Historical Society

Captivatingly written, the latest work by geologist and adventurer Ruby McConnell is part geological history, part memoir, part ode to the Pacific Northwest and part ecofeminist call to action. Against the backdrop of the devastating eruption of Mt. St. Helens in 1980, McConnell examines notions of self and our relationships to the natural world in this significant new book. -- Ms. Magazine

McConnell renders her self-portrait against the backdrop of the Pacific Northwest's dynamic geology and, in the process, tenders some of the hard questions we'd do well to ask ourselves. -Ellen Waterston, author of Walking the High Desert: Encounters with Rural America Along the Oregon Desert Trail

About the Author

Ruby McConnell is a writer, geologist, and adventuress whose work focuses on nature, the environment, and the relationship between landscape and the human experience. Her experiences as a researcher, activist, and explorer in the wildlands of the western United States led her write A Woman's Guide to the Wild- the definitive outdoor guide for anyone who identifies as, or loves, women (or just wants to learn how to read a map) and its companion, A Girl's Guide to the Wild (spring 2019). Ruby believes that positive outdoor experiences are the key to healthy living and protecting the environment and is committed to breaking down barriers that prevent all kinds of people from being outside. Her writing has appeared in publications such as Grain Literary Journal, Oregon Humanities Magazine, and Mother Earth News and was awarded an Oregon Literary Arts Fellowship in 2016. She is almost always in the woods of the Pacific Northwest, but you can find her online at www.rubymcconnell.com and @RubyGoneWild.