No Straight Road Takes You There: Essays for Uneven Terrain

Bestseller Solnit (Not Too Late) urges readers to accept that progress may not be quick or linear in this impassioned if tedious essay collection. Labeling herself “a tortoise at the mayfly party,” Solnit draws on her years of activism to describe “watching the slow journey of ideas from the margins to the center” and coming to realize that what seems like a setback may actually be essential movement toward change. She illustrates this point through reflections on a range of issues, including climate change and feminism. She has a few incisive moments, among them her critiques of “unbiased” centrism—which obfuscates “the ugliest... prejudices”—and of Silicon Valley’s “above the law” billionaires. At other times, however, Solnit leans into a fanciful whimsy that grates, musing on “Anthropocene instruments” made from “trees whose voices have changed” with the climate, and offering head-scratcher proclamations (“Familiarity is a life raft or some floating trash... the task isn’t to bellyflop onto the flotsam; it’s to swim”). Even so, she makes a convincing case that doomerism can be defeated by offering better “theories of change” that demonstrate how “our actions... matter” in shaping history—a well-conceived thesis that she unfortunately repeats to eye-glazing effect. It’s a plodding call to action that will have readers hoping for a less tiresome route. (May)