The Planter of Modern Life, Stephen Heyman
The Planter of Modern Life, Stephen Heyman
4 Rating(s)
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The Planter of Modern Life
Louis Bromfield and the Seeds of a Food Revolution

Author: Stephen Heyman

Narrator: Robertson Dean

Unabridged: 9 hr 37 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 04/14/2020


Synopsis

Louis Bromfield was a World War I ambulance driver, a Paris expat, and a Pulitzer Prize–winning novelist as famous in the 1920s as Hemingway or Fitzgerald. But he cashed in his literary success to finance a wild agrarian dream in his native Ohio. The ideas he planted at his utopian experimental farm, Malabar, would inspire America’s first generation of organic farmers and popularize the tenets of environmentalism years before Rachel Carson's Silent Spring.

A lanky Midwestern farm boy dressed up like a Left Bank bohemian, Bromfield stood out in literary Paris for his lavish hospitality and his green thumb. He built a magnificent garden outside the city where he entertained aristocrats, movie stars, flower breeders, and writers of all stripes. Millions savored his novels, which were turned into Broadway plays and Hollywood blockbusters, yet Bromfield's greatest passion was the soil. In 1938, Bromfield returned to Ohio to transform 600 badly eroded acres into a thriving cooperative farm, which became a mecca for agricultural pioneers and a country retreat for celebrities.

This sweeping biography unearths a lost icon of American culture, a fascinating, hilarious and unclassifiable character who—between writing and plowing—also dabbled in global politics and high society.

About Stephen Heyman

Stephen Heyman has written for the New York Times, Slate, Vogue, and many other publications. He is the recipient of fellowships from the Leon Levy Center for Biography and the National Endowment for the Humanities. He lives in Pittsburgh.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Jeanine

I could write a book on my reactions to reading The Planter of Modern Life: Louis Bromfield and the Seeds of a Food Revolution, because Louis Bromfield is a small part of my personal life. In the mid-fifties my family moved to Malabar Farm from Mississippi; my father had been hired to manage the sho......more

Goodreads review by Heather

Thank you to W. W. Norton for giving me a free digital galley of this book in exchange for feedback. According to the beginning of this biography, Louis Bromfield is mostly unknown outside of northeast Ohio. Well, I'm from northeast Ohio, and I knew exactly who he was when I picked up this book - at......more

Goodreads review by Liv

This is a well-written book that explores (albeit lightly) the influence of agriculture in Louis Bromfield's life and the subsequent influence he had on agricultural development. I enjoyed the exploration, but felt like we really did not get to truly see the overall impact of his life (in which Brom......more

Goodreads review by Bob

Summary: A biography of novelist, screenwriter, and sustainable farming pioneer Louis Bromfield. This happened to be a serendipitous find as I was shopping at an online book site. I was unaware of this recently released biography of Louis Bromfield. I will forgive you if you are wondering Louis who?......more