The subtitle to Summer Brennan’s book The Oyster War was what drew me in: The True Story of a Small Farm, Big Politics, and The Future of Wilderness in America. “The future of wilderness in America!,” I thought, “Wow, that sounds a lot like my personal area of interest!” I was thrilled to find out that a book we were reading for class aligned so closely with my specific interest in American wilderness politics. From the clever epigraph, the tongue-in-cheek Dramatic Personae, and the powerfully beautiful writing style, I was hooked all the way through the introduction. She foregrounded her book in two impressive questions that gave me hope that the questions of what in the world to do with “wilderness” today are still relevant. Brennan asks:
One, for a world that is in constant motion and overlap, how do we decide who belongs or doesn’t belong? And two, when humanity has touched and changed every corner of the earth, what does it mean to be wild?” (Brennan 2015, 4)
These are fantastic questions that engage with academic scholarship and policy alike, and I was thrilled to see them asked in such a beautifully manicured book. However, as the rest of the book unfolded, my faith in Summer Brennan as a critical scholar with a compassionate, unbiased, trustworthy, removed stance unraveled completely. After the first chapter of the “The Broken Shore,” I already held Brennan under bewildered skepticism. This skepticism only grew as the story continued and her characterization of the actors became more and more… sketchy. Because I had such a strong, negative reaction to Brennan’s reporting and because this endeavor (a book about wilderness utilizing a complex case study) is something I could definitely foresee in my future, I want to offer several critiques of The Oyster War from my perspective. Additionally, I will explore the landscape of the reviews of Brennan’s book, particularly from sources such as The Huffington Post and The LA Times. The purpose of this activity is to explore how I will approach similar questions differently, and hopefully better, than Brennan in my future work.
Critique 1: Brennan represents her human subjects unjustly.
From the very first chapter titled The Oyster Farm, Brennan represents the people involved in the controversy in problematic ways. She begins the entire body of her book with the tale of Oscar, a Hispanic oyster farmer who takes her out on the boat with the crew and flirts with her before allegedly losing his job from the fallout of this excursion. While critics of the book such as Corey Goodman offer a counter story of Oscar’s reality, Brennan Coming directly after Brennan claims neutrality in the conflict, its clear that she has a naivete about how her presence as a reporter and an outsider can affect the subject of the journalism. An optimistic reader might take Brennan’s opening as a wider frame of injustice presented by the events of the so-called oyster war. However, Brennan essentially drops the thread of Oscar after the first chapter, jumping around to many other time periods and characters and never returning to provide closure on a person with whom she apparently sympathizes. If what she writes about Oscar is true, her reporting (not the oyster war) has at least one casualty. If what she writes is a fictionalization, as it often seems and Goodman argues, then she is at fault for something more egregious: the use of racial and sexual stereotyping and content to characterize the only representation of the oyster farmer as an actor throughout her entire text. This in unethical both because its dishonest and because it is biased without admitting its bias (in fact presenting itself as unbiased truth).
Not only does she represent the Oscar of her Dramatic Personae with a bias, but she continues this pattern of opinionated-yet-apparently-truthful descriptions throughout her text. Actors such as Phillip Burton and Fred Smith get lengthy introductions brimming with fun facts. For example Fred Smith’ introduction becomes a survey of radical environmental movements, several of which have been accused of acts of eco-terrorism. What this has to do directly with the situation of potential wilderness at Drakes Bay Oyster Farm, Brennan doesn’t explicate. Phillip Burton on the other hand, has “daddy issues” (Brennan 2015, 122). While details and stylistic choices such as these description make Brennan’s prose readable and entertaining, her choices forfeit a certain amount of professionalism, academic rigor, and objectivity that would perhaps be more fair to her subjects and their situations. To forgo these flourishes would be to make The Oyster War much sharper and less fictionalized.
Critique 2: Brennan lacks the background and citations necessary for academic standing.
I understand that the style of reporting and journalism is supposed to be perhaps more engaging and readable than an academic paper published in a peer-reviewed journal. Brennan’s book is tailored towards a popular audience, not necessarily an academic one. That being said, I think that Brennan’s book would have benefited from a rigorous process of peer review by scientists, historians, wilderness philosophers, and policy makers. She claims that her book is about the future of wilderness in America and she includes a breadth of history that she claims is exhaustive (and that her readers claim in thorough). However, she fails to acknowledge and cite several debates and papers that I have encountered when doing my own academic research on wilderness philosophy and Point Reyes specifically. It wouldn’t bother me as much that she omits writers like William Cronon, Laura Watt, and the entire second volume of Calicott and Nelson’s wilderness debates (The Wilderness Debate Rages On) if she hadn’t foregrounded her book with philosophical questions. Her bibliography, which is admittedly “selected,” consists mainly of newspaper articles, many of which are from the Point Reyes Light. Her selection of academic papers and classic works on wilderness are slim. She even attempts to explore the etymology of wilderness without directly citing William Cronon’s widely cited work “The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature” (Cronon 1995). Perhaps she implies the same claims he makes, but her text lacks in-text citations completely, making it very difficult to track exactly where she acquires her specific material. These details are important to make sure her interpretations are accurate (which Goodman argues they often aren’t) and that her source materials gets adequate recognition, which I argue they don’t.
From what I’ve read of the reviews of The Oyster War, reviewers tend to think Brennan’s work is thoroughly researched and well written. Her book indeed appears so to those without a background in wilderness theory or Point Reyes. She certainly represents many pockets of history. But what she clearly didn’t do was a JSTOR search of “wilderness” or “Point Reyes.” This is clear because she misses a very important piece that connect the landscape wars of Point Reyes to the philosophy of wilderness. This is “The Trouble with Preservation, or, Getting Back to the Wrong Term for Wilderness Protection: A Case Study at Point Reyes National Seashore” by Laura Watt (Watt 2002). This article discusses the ethics of destroying human artifacts and evidence of human presence to create a visual wilderness landscape. This is a fascinating dilemma that Brennan barely touches and a peer-reviewed, often cited, easily accessible article that is missing from her selected bibliography. Omissions like this one make me all the more skeptical of the kind of background research Brennan conducted for this book. She might have done a lot, but it appears that she didn’t read the right kind (if by “right” I mean the readings that would ground her in an academic setting).
To tie this critique into the ENVS situated research hourglass, Brennan poses a “top of the hourglass” with rather large stakes.” She then delves into a select specifics of the case study, but she concludes with the finale of the story without broadening her scope to the larger implications. Its possible that one could argue she does address larger implications of the Point Reyes conflict throughout, but she doesn’t do so to the scale of which she begins. And she can’t, at least without the academic backing she lacks.
Critique 3: Brennan untruthfully represents the book as neutral, true, and comprehensive.
In the Prologue, Brennan frames her position as neutral. On the cover, she claims that her book is a “true story.” These are two of Brennan’s gravest mistakes because neither of them is possible. No author is neutral. Every writer and every thinker interprets events through their own perception. Brennan grew up near Point Reyes. As readers, are we supposed to believe that her ideas about nature and the human relationship with it are completely blank? From the very first chapter and its story of injustice, we see how her presence in the story itself is not neutral in the slightest, a reality that she refuses to acknowledge. Her writing style, which is captivating and beautiful, unnecessarily fictionalizes her characters. In particular, Brennan writes the description of Sarah Allen’s seal research as if she was there, which she wasn’t. While this is pleasant to read, it creates a blurry line between what is true and what is made up. When presenting a “true story” this is a dangerous line to walk.
Every piece of writing is authored by someone. Every piece of writing is a selection of possible alternatives. History, which much of Brennan’s book claims to be, is by necessity a selection. None of this is inherently bad. However, because Brennan doesn’t acknowledge either of these realities of writing books, she presents a falsehood.It would be one thing if she foregrounded her work with a specific focus instead of claiming to treat ever single aspect of the conflict and history (which she doesn’t succeed in). In particular, not recognizing her own voice, agency, and position in the story as it unfolds is a mistake I hope to avoid as best I can in the future. Acknowledging one’s one position and bias is important for readers of any work of nonfiction.
Why do I care so much and why does it matter to my future thesis?
Like Cory Goodman claims, its a shame that Brennan’s book is riddled with mistakes, omissions, misrepresentations, and untruthful claims because it’s truly captivating. But this captivating quality, married with her sweeping momentary engagement (and then disengagement) with important and resounding philosophical questions that makes her book so frustrating and, honestly, dangerous. I want to believe her, and to someone with a less academic background in her chosen topic and with lower standards of citation, there seems no reason not to believe her. I also want to add that her mistakes don’t compromise the potential impact of her book. There is something to be said for having a popularly written and pretty book about environmental histories, injustices, and burning questions that affect people’s lives and landscape development. For opening the door for people like me, I am grateful to Brennan and hope to adopt aspects of her research and writing styles. I care so much about the ethics of writing nonfiction and presenting research because I believe writing can be unjust. In particular, writing about environmental and social dilemmas takes especially careful attention to authorship and research integrity. I would also like to add that Mark Dowie, author of Conservation Refugees, writes ethically, academically, and engagingly. Considering that Dowie is also a journalist for the Point Reyes Light, I wonder why Brennan didn’t utilize his expertise in both the areas of writing and content more (explicitly) in her book.
However, journalistic inquiry with its beautiful prose and academic rigor do not need to be mutually exclusive. As well, this book need not be the only one published about Point Reyes and its complexity. I hope to use my critiques of Brennan’s book to heart as I engage in similar topics as she does. I hope to learn from her writing style and popular engagement while holding myself to a higher standard of academic connection. Above all, I hope to engage in compassionate scholarship where the subjects of my research are fairly represented, consenting, and feel as if they have agency in their own stories.
Works Cited
Brennan, Summer. The Oyster War: The True Story of a Small Farm, Big Politics, and the Future of Wilderness in America. Berkeley: Counterpoint, 2015. Print.
Cronon, William. “The Trouble with Wilderness; or, Getting Back to the Wrong Nature.” William Cronon, ed., Uncommon Ground: Rethinking the Human Place in Nature, New York: W. W. Norton & Co., 1995, 69-90.
Dowie, Mark. Conservation Refugees: The Hundred-Year Conflict between Global Conservation and Native Peoples. Cambridge: MIT Press, 2009. Print.
Watt, Laura. “The Trouble with Preservation, or, Getting Back to the Wrong Term for Wilderness Protection: A Case Study at Point Reyes National Seashore.” Yearbook of the Association of Pacific Coast Geographers 01/2002; 64(1). DOI: 10.1353/pcg.2002.0009