Kunstler, James Howard 1948-

PERSONAL:

Born October 19, 1948, in New York, NY; son of Henry Kunstler (a diamond merchant) and Muriel (a businesswoman) Kunstler Glaser; married Jennifer Armstrong (a children's writer). Education: Brockport State College, B.S., 1971.

ADDRESSES:

Home—Saratoga Springs, NY. Office—P. O. Box 193, Saratoga Springs, NY 12866. Agent—Adam Chromy, Artists and Artisans Agency, 10 W. 29th St., New York, NY 10001. E-mail—[email protected].

CAREER:

Writer. Boston Phoenix, Boston, MA, feature writer, 1972; Knickerbocker News, Albany, NY, feature writer, 1973-74; Rolling Stone, San Francisco, CA, staff writer, 1974-75. Guest lecturer at various colleges, including Harvard, Yale, Columbia, Dartmouth, Cornell, Massachusetts Institute of Technology, and University of Virginia.

WRITINGS:

The Wampanaki Tales, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1979.

A Clown in the Moonlight, St. Martin's Press (New York, NY), 1981.

The Life of Byron Jaynes, W.W. Norton (New York, NY), 1983.

An Embarrassment of Riches, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1985.

Blood Solstice, Doubleday (New York, NY), 1986.

The Halloween Ball, Bantam Books (New York, NY), 1987.

Thunder Island, Bantam Books (New York, NY), 1988.

The Hunt, Tom Doherty Associates (New York, NY), 1988.

The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-made Landscape, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1993.

(Author of lyrics, with others) The Song of Sacajawea (compact disc), BMG Music, 1994.

Aladdin and the Magic Lamp, Rabbit Ears Books (New York, NY), 1995, ABDO Pub. Co. (Edina, MN), 2005.

Davy Crockett, Rabbit Ears Books (New York, NY), 1995, ABDO Pub. Co. (Edina, MN), 2005.

Johnny Appleseed, Rabbit Ears Books (New York, NY), 1995, ABDO Pub. Co. (Edina, MN), 2005.

Annie Oakley, Rabbit Ears Books (New York, NY), 1996, ABDO Pub. Co. (Edina, MN), 2005.

Home from Nowhere: Remaking Our Everyday World for the Twenty-first Century, Simon & Schuster (New York, NY), 1996.

The City in Mind: Meditations on the Urban Condition, Free Press (New York, NY), 2001.

Maggie Darling: A Novel, Atlantic Monthly Press (New York, NY), 2004.

The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century, Atlantic Monthly Press (New York, NY), 2005.

World Made by Hand, Atlantic Monthly Press (New York, NY), 2008.

Kunstler has contributed articles to magazines and newspapers, including New York Times Sunday Magazine; maintains a blog at http://jameshowardkunstler.typepad.com.

ADAPTATIONS:

Several of Kunstler's books have been made into audio recordings, including Annie Oakley and Davy Crockett. Many of his novels have also been optioned for the movies.

SIDELIGHTS:

Except for a short stint in the Long Island suburbs, James Howard Kunstler spent most of his childhood in New York City. He began his writing career as a reporter and feature writer for various newspapers and then became a staff writer for Rolling Stone Magazine. In 1975, Kunstler began his career as a freelance writer and book author.

Kunstler's first novel, The Wampanaki Tales, was published in 1979 and focuses on kids at a summer camp. He followed it up with A Clown in the Moonlight, a tale about a marriage on a Vermont college campus. In The Life of Byron Jaynes, Kunstler drew from his experience at Rolling Stone magazine to write the story of a dead rock and roll star who turns out to be living in rural New England. According to the author's home page, Kunstler's personal favorites among his works are An Embarrassment of Riches, a historical comedy set in 1803, about two botanists searching the southern United States wilderness for a nonexistent plant, and The Halloween Ball, a story revolving around four men in their thirties who are coming to terms with growing up. Kunstler has also written several books for juvenile audiences, including fictionalized accounts of Annie Oakley and Johnny Appleseed.

Although he has had no formal training in architecture or city planning, Kunstler has received widespread attention for his books about the urban landscape and life in big cities. In The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-made Landscape, Kunstler focuses on public architecture and planning during the last half-century. He argues that the suburban landscape with its endless highways and ugly strip malls is one of the primary causes of problems in modern society, including the destruction of civic life and the growth of social and economic burdens. In a quote from his Web site, Kunstler explains that he wrote the book "because I believe a lot of people share my feelings about the tragic landscape of highway strips, parking lots, housing tracts, mega-malls, junked cities, and ravaged countryside that makes up the everyday environment where most Americans live and work. A land full of places that are not worth caring about will soon be a nation and a way of life that is not worth defending."

In Home from Nowhere: Remaking Our Everyday World for the Twenty-first Century, Kunstler carries on with his theme of the deterioration of urban life and delves into America's efforts to restore an urban environment that is worth caring about. Among his solutions are a return to the basic principles of design and the restoration of traditional architecture and town planning.

Kunstler's next book about the urban condition, The City in Mind: Meditations on the Urban Condition, focuses on eight cities: Atlanta, Paris, Mexico City, Berlin, Las Vegas, Rome, Boston, and London. Kunstler delves into the architectural personality and urban design of each city and how this has influenced their cultures and their individual successes. Bruce Oren, writing in the Houston Chronicle, was critical of the quality of the book's photographs and illustrations. However, he noted that Kunstler "makes a persuasive argument for massive change in how we live and lays out the problems that must be overcome."

In his wide-ranging discourse in The City in Mind, Kunstler discusses everything from the historical renovation of Paris and the architectural dreams of Adolf Hitler's Third Reich to his own views on such cities as Las Vegas and Paris. Although some reviewers, often those from the cities Kunstler talks about, found his approach too acerbic and self-indulgent, they generally agreed that he offers important insights. "Like the better cities he describes," wrote David Goldberg in the Atlanta Journal-Constitution, "Kunstler's literary territory is dazzlingly multifarious, frequently infuriating—and quite often exhilarating." A reviewer writing in Kirkus Reviews noted that Kunstler's "critical eye is sharp" because he has a "will to create an ideal city, where transportation flows easily and people of different classes mingle congenially. That enthusiasm, along with a uniquely acerbic tone, shines throughout these pages."

With Maggie Darling: A Novel, Kunstler steps away from urban nonfiction and returns to the fictional world. Heroine Maggie Darling strongly resembles Martha Stewart in her ability to turn her interest in crafts, cooking, and home improvements designed to create a comfortable, elegant environment into a profitable, highly successful mega-business. However, Maggie's apparent perfection and superhuman level of over-achievement serves as a disguise, behind which dwells a flawed, unhappy woman in a crumbling marriage to wealthy-but-cheating husband Kenneth, and mother to a single child of no discernable ambitions. In addition, the reality behind Maggie's successful business is that she cannot keep it running without plenty of outside assistance. Unable to completely break away from urban commentary, Kunstler sets Maggie's story against a backdrop of the decline and potential collapse of modern civilization, complete with drugs, gangs, increases in crime, rap music, and random shootings. Janet St. John, in a review for Booklist, remarked that "Kunstler is a skilled storyteller and social commentator, and this tale is one timely and incredibly entertaining ride." A critic for Kirkus Reviews had mixed thoughts regarding the book's success, calling it a "frenetic satire with its moments—while the mannered style grates." A reviewer for Publishers Weekly opined that "though Kunstler betrays his heroine as the plot devolves into farce, loose ends tie up as pretty as a Christmas bow and the novel radiantly succeeds as a contemporary comedy of manners."

The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century takes Kunstler firmly back into the realm of urban commentary. The book addresses what Kunstler considers to be some of the most worrisome situations at the close of the twentieth century and the start of the twenty-first. He examines a number of catastrophic situations that appear to only be worsening, from worldwide epidemics of illnesses such as AIDS to drastically altered weather patterns as a result of global warming to the overuse of resources that will lead to the depletion of those on which we depend most strongly, such as oil. Several critics were left with the impression of too much information having been collected in a single place and found the book overly alarmist in nature. Bryan Urstadt, in a review for Technology Review, noted that "despite its urgency, Kunstler's book reminds us how modern man is scared by his own inventions." A contributor to Kirkus Reviews was less kind, calling the book "cant-filled and overwrought: a crying-wolf approach to real but largely addressable issues, long on jeremiads but absent of remedies." However, in a review for American Scientist, David Ehrenfeld remarked: "What sets The Long Emergency apart from numerous other books on this theme is its comprehensive sweep—its powerful integration of science, technology, economics, finance, international politics and social change—along with a fascinating attempt to peer into a chaotic future."

Although World Made by Hand is a novel, the book addresses many of the issues that Kunstler tackles in The Long Emergency. Set in upstate New York, it is a post-apocalyptic vision of life in the wake of a bomb detonation in Los Angeles. The story is narrated by Robert Earle as he struggles to support his family after relocating to get farther away from the destruction. Focusing on a small set of survivors, Kunstler attempts to depict life without the trappings of modern civilization, and in the absence of conventional government and the global economy, keeping his story narrowed to the most personal aspects of daily life. Society is reduced to doing virtually everything by hand, and violence and despair become constant residents. A contributor to Kirkus Reviews was disappointed in the pacing of the book overall, commenting that "it's hard to imagine that a post-apocalyptic world could be this tedious." In a review for the Library Journal, contributor Henry Bankhead commented: "This future is not completely dire, but it's grim enough to make us seriously consider how we would get by." A reviewer for Publishers Weekly dubbed the work "convincing if didactic: Union Grove exists solely to illustrate Kunstler's doomsday vision."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

PERIODICALS

American Scientist, September 1, 2005, David Ehrenfeld, "The End Is Nigh," p. 469.

Antioch Review, winter, 1994, review of The Geography of Nowhere: The Rise and Decline of America's Man-made Landscape, p. 186.

Atlanta Journal-Constitution, January 20, 2002, David Goldberg, "Boom and Doom: In His New Book on City Planning, James Howard Kunstler Condemns Atlanta as a ‘Giant Misbegotten Organism,’" p. F1.

Atlantic, July, 1993, review of The Geography of Nowhere, p. 117.

Audubon, November, 1993, review of The Geography of Nowhere, p. 120.

Best Sellers, July, 1986, review of Blood Solstice, p. 135.

Bloomsbury Review, November, 1995, review of Davy Crockett, p. 35.

Booklist, April 1, 1986, review of Blood Solstice, p. 1118; April 15, 1988, review of Thunder Island, p. 1391; June 1, 1993, review of The Geography of Nowhere, p. 1764; December 15, 2001, Will Hickman, review of The City in Mind: Meditations on the Urban Condition, pp. 687-688; December 1, 2003, Janet St. John, review of Maggie Darling: A Novel, p. 646.

Book Report, November, 1998, review of An Embarrassment of Riches, p. 58.

Book World, May 4, 1986, review of Blood Solstice, p. 8; May 30, 1993, review of The Geography of Nowhere, p. 3; September 25, 1994, review of The Geography of Nowhere, p. 16; October 27, 1996, review of Home from Nowhere: Remaking Our Everyday World for the Twenty-first Century, p. 7.

Children's Bookwatch, December, 1995, review of Davy Crockett, p. 3; May, 1996, review of Annie Oakley, p. 6.

Christian Science Monitor, September 7, 1993, review of The Geography of Nowhere, p. 13; September 16, 1994, review of The Geography of Nowhere, p. 11.

Commonweal, September 26, 1997, review of Home from Nowhere, p. 23.

Houston Chronicle, January 5, 1997, Bruce Oren, "More of Us Should Live on Main Street U.S.A.," p. 19.

Hungry Mind Review, spring, 1997, review of Home from Nowhere, p. 6.

Journal of Historical Geography, July, 1994, review of The Geography of Nowhere, p. 353.

Journal of Professional Issues in Engineering Education and Practice, April, 1999, Brian Brenner, review of The Geography of Nowhere, p. 68.

Kirkus Reviews, March 1, 1986, review of Blood Solstice, p. 344; September 1, 1987, review of The Halloween Ball, p. 1262; April 15, 1993, review of The Geography of Nowhere, p. 507; August 1, 1996, review of Home from Nowhere, p. 1123; November 1, 2001, review of The City in Mind, p. 1534; November 15, 2003, review of Maggie Darling, p. 1331; March 15, 2005, review of The Long Emergency: Surviving the Converging Catastrophes of the Twenty-first Century, p. 336; January 1, 2008, review of World Made by Hand.

Kliatt, spring, 1988, review of An Embarrassment of Riches, p. 1988.

Library Journal, April 1, 1986, review of Blood Solstice, p. 165; May 1, 1993, review of The Geography of Nowhere, p. 85; November 1, 1996, review of Home from Nowhere, p. 96; December, 2001, Glenn Masuchika, review of The City in Mind, p. 153; November 15, 2007, Henry Bankhead, review of World Made by Hand, p. 50.

Los Angeles Times Book Review, May 30, 1993, review of The Geography of Nowhere, p. 6.

National Review, May 24, 1993, review of The Geography of Nowhere, p. 64.

Newsweek, June 21, 1993, review of The Geography of Nowhere, p. 62.

New Yorker, August 2, 1993, review of The Geography of Nowhere, p. 83.

New York Times, June 15, 1993, review of The Geography of Nowhere, p. C17.

New York Times Book Review, May 11, 1986, review of Blood Solstice, p. 24; November 17, 1996, review of Home from Nowhere, p. 26.

Publishers Weekly, February 21, 1986, review of Blood Solstice, p. 154; October 23, 1987, review of The Halloween Ball, p. 51; December 4, 1987, review of The Hunt, p. 66; April 22, 1988, review of Thunder Island, p. 75; April 19, 1993, review of The Geography of Nowhere, p. 44; May 16, 1994, review of The Song of Sacajawea, p. 31; June 19, 1995, review of Johnny Appleseed, p. 26; August 5, 1996, review of Home from Nowhere, p. 420; November 4, 1996, review of Home from Nowhere, p. 44; October 15, 2001, review of The City in Mind, p. 53; November 3, 2003, review of Maggie Darling, p. 51; October 15, 2007, review of World Made by Hand, p. 34.

Quill & Quire, June, 1986, review of Blood Solstice, p. 23.

San Francisco Chronicle, March 30, 1997, Carolyn Lockhead, "Sprawl Is Leading Us to Anywhere, U.S.A.," p. 9; February 3, 2002, John King, "City Dumps: Geography of Nowhere Author Rants about America's Haphazard Urban Design," p. 6.

School Library Journal, August, 1995, review of Johnny Appleseed, p. 66; September, 1995, review of Aladdin and the Magic Lamp, p. 161; February, 1996, review of Davy Crockett, p. 95; August, 1996, review of Annie Oakley, p. 125.

Sierra, September, 1993, review of The Geography of Nowhere, p. 132.

Society, September, 1995, review of The Geography of Nowhere, p. 90.

Technology Review, October 2005, Bryan Urstadt, "The Get-ready Men: The Cheap Oil Will End One Day," p. 72.

Utne Reader, November, 1996, review of Home from Nowhere, p. 89; March, 1997, review of Home from Nowhere, p. 84.

Virginia Quarterly Review, winter, 1994, review of The Geography of Nowhere, p. 25.

Voice of Youth Advocates, June, 1988, review of The Hunt, p. 87; October, 1988, review of An Embarrassment of Riches, p. 212.

Wall Street Journal, August 25, 1993, review of The Geography of Nowhere, p. A7.

Wilson Quarterly, autumn, 1996, review of Home from Nowhere, p. 101.

ONLINE

James Howard Kunstler Web site,http://www.kunstler.com (April 17, 2002).