Syndetics cover image
Image from Syndetics

The planter of modern life : Louis Bromfield and the seeds of a food revolution / Stephen Heyman.

By: Material type: TextTextPublisher: New York : W.W. Norton & Company, [2020]Copyright date: ©2020Edition: First editionDescription: 340 pages : illustrations ; 24 cmContent type:
  • text
Media type:
  • unmediated
Carrier type:
  • volume
ISBN:
  • 9781324001898
  • 1324001895
Subject(s):
Contents:
Garden (1918-1938). Foreign soil: Brest, January 1918 ; Invasive species: Paris, winter 1925-26 ; Hothouse: Senlis, 1929 ; "Teched": Saint-Brice-sous-Fôret, 1931 ; Tangled roots: Senlis, 1932 ; Blight: Senlis, summer 1936 ; The rains came: aboard the Victoria -- Farm (1938-1956). Seeding: Richland, county, Ohio, December 1938 ; Germination: Malabar farm, 1939 ; Victory garden: St. Louis, Missouri, 1941 ; Food fight: Malabar farm, 1942 ; Erosion: Malabar farm, 1945 ; Four seasons at Malabar: based on farm journals, 1944-1953 ; On the hill: Washington, DC, May 1951 ; Breeding: Malabar farm, 1952 ; Unto the ground: Duke farms, Hillsborough, New Jersey, 1955 -- Epilogue: the white room: Itatiba, São Paulo State, Brazil, 1954.
Summary: "How a literary idol of the Lost Generation launched America's organic and sustainable food movement. In interwar France, Louis Bromfield was equally famous as a writer and as a gardener. He pruned dahlias with Edith Wharton, weeded Gertrude Stein's vegetable patch, and fed the starving artists who flocked to his farmhouse outside Paris. His best-selling novels earned him a Pulitzer-and the jealousy of friends like Ernest Hemingway. But his radical approach to the soil has aged better than his books, inspiring a wave of farmers, foodies, and chefs to rethink how they should grow and consume their food. In 1938, Bromfield returned to his native Ohio, an expat novelist now reinvented as the squire of 1,000-acre Malabar Farm. Transplanting ideas from India and Europe, he created a mecca for forward- thinking agriculturalists and a rural retreat for celebrities like Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall (who were married there in 1945). Bromfield's untold story is a fascinating history of people and places-and of deep-rooted concerns about the environment and its ability to sustain our most basic needs and pleasures"-- Provided by publisher.
Holdings
Item type Home library Collection Call number Materials specified Status Date due Barcode Item holds
Adult Book Adult Book Main Library Biography Bromfiel L. H618 Available 33111009636354
Total holds: 0

Enhanced descriptions from Syndetics:

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. Gertrude Stein enjoyed his food, Edith Wharton admired his roses, Ernest Hemingway boiled with jealousy over his critical acclaim. 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 like Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall (who were married there in 1945).

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. Through it all, he fought for an agriculture that would enrich the soil and protect the planet. While Bromfield's name has faded into obscurity, his mission seems more critical today than ever before.

Includes bibliographical references and index.

Garden (1918-1938). Foreign soil: Brest, January 1918 ; Invasive species: Paris, winter 1925-26 ; Hothouse: Senlis, 1929 ; "Teched": Saint-Brice-sous-Fôret, 1931 ; Tangled roots: Senlis, 1932 ; Blight: Senlis, summer 1936 ; The rains came: aboard the Victoria -- Farm (1938-1956). Seeding: Richland, county, Ohio, December 1938 ; Germination: Malabar farm, 1939 ; Victory garden: St. Louis, Missouri, 1941 ; Food fight: Malabar farm, 1942 ; Erosion: Malabar farm, 1945 ; Four seasons at Malabar: based on farm journals, 1944-1953 ; On the hill: Washington, DC, May 1951 ; Breeding: Malabar farm, 1952 ; Unto the ground: Duke farms, Hillsborough, New Jersey, 1955 -- Epilogue: the white room: Itatiba, São Paulo State, Brazil, 1954.

"How a literary idol of the Lost Generation launched America's organic and sustainable food movement. In interwar France, Louis Bromfield was equally famous as a writer and as a gardener. He pruned dahlias with Edith Wharton, weeded Gertrude Stein's vegetable patch, and fed the starving artists who flocked to his farmhouse outside Paris. His best-selling novels earned him a Pulitzer-and the jealousy of friends like Ernest Hemingway. But his radical approach to the soil has aged better than his books, inspiring a wave of farmers, foodies, and chefs to rethink how they should grow and consume their food. In 1938, Bromfield returned to his native Ohio, an expat novelist now reinvented as the squire of 1,000-acre Malabar Farm. Transplanting ideas from India and Europe, he created a mecca for forward- thinking agriculturalists and a rural retreat for celebrities like Humphrey Bogart and Lauren Bacall (who were married there in 1945). Bromfield's untold story is a fascinating history of people and places-and of deep-rooted concerns about the environment and its ability to sustain our most basic needs and pleasures"-- Provided by publisher.

Powered by Koha