Underjungle: A Novel, with Author James Sturz '87
Registration Status:
Closed
Event Date:
Event Time:
6:00 pm
Category:
Club Programs
James Sturz's new novel, Underjungle (August 1, Unnamed Press), is a tale of love, loss, family, and war—set entirely underwater. So War and Peace, but three-thousand feet deeper. And considerably shorter. And maybe a little funnier, too.
As a journalist, Sturz has covered the ocean for many top U.S. publications (including The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Outside, Travel + Leisure, National Geographic Adventure, etc.; he's also a PADI Divemaster, free diver, ice diver, Explorers Club Fellow, and has even scuba dived a flooded section of the Great Wall of China for Men's Journal), but Underjungle is a different kind of story. It's a novel about the pressures inside and around us, far from our terrestrial mess. But beyond telling a strange little story, his goal hasn't just been to say what the ocean is, but what it's like—so that readers will love it and then want to defend it, without feeling they're being told what to do.
Now based between New York and Hawaii, Sturz asks readers to give themselves up to another world: not just to step outside of themselves, but of their species. A broad metaphysical story of fantastical world-building by this accomplished journalist, travel and nature writer, Underjungle is delivered in brief, funny, chilling, mesmerizing and lyrical passages, encompassing the marine environment, science, art, philosophy, and grief—as deep and surprising as life on the seafloor, where much of Underjungle is set. Buoyed by humor and tinged with the unshakeable melancholy of loss is the existential question that forever ties the novel to our human experience: what is our purpose? Sturz's fiction and journalism have been published in 18 countries, and translated into nine languages.
Underjungle has garnered advance praise from ocean conservationists, underwater explorers, and prize-winning fiction writers alike.
"Underjungle is poetry, fantasy, love, war, mystery and philosophy. This book will make you think about the ocean in ways you haven't before, and that might just make you want to protect it. I've dived with James, and I'm pleased to see that he has created this fascinating and complex story about the ocean and our deep connection to it."
– Jean-Michel Cousteau, Ocean Futures Society
"Luminous, strange, thought-provoking and as profound as the seas, the pelagic brilliance of Underjungle cannot be overstated. This is the brilliant novel Prince Namor would have written had he had more poetry classes."
– Junot Díaz, MFA '95, author of This is How You Lose Her
6:00 pm reception; 6:30 pm lecture. Advance registrations required. Copies of his book will be available for sale at the event.
As a journalist, Sturz has covered the ocean for many top U.S. publications (including The Atlantic, The New York Times, The Wall Street Journal, Outside, Travel + Leisure, National Geographic Adventure, etc.; he's also a PADI Divemaster, free diver, ice diver, Explorers Club Fellow, and has even scuba dived a flooded section of the Great Wall of China for Men's Journal), but Underjungle is a different kind of story. It's a novel about the pressures inside and around us, far from our terrestrial mess. But beyond telling a strange little story, his goal hasn't just been to say what the ocean is, but what it's like—so that readers will love it and then want to defend it, without feeling they're being told what to do.
Now based between New York and Hawaii, Sturz asks readers to give themselves up to another world: not just to step outside of themselves, but of their species. A broad metaphysical story of fantastical world-building by this accomplished journalist, travel and nature writer, Underjungle is delivered in brief, funny, chilling, mesmerizing and lyrical passages, encompassing the marine environment, science, art, philosophy, and grief—as deep and surprising as life on the seafloor, where much of Underjungle is set. Buoyed by humor and tinged with the unshakeable melancholy of loss is the existential question that forever ties the novel to our human experience: what is our purpose? Sturz's fiction and journalism have been published in 18 countries, and translated into nine languages.
Underjungle has garnered advance praise from ocean conservationists, underwater explorers, and prize-winning fiction writers alike.
"Underjungle is poetry, fantasy, love, war, mystery and philosophy. This book will make you think about the ocean in ways you haven't before, and that might just make you want to protect it. I've dived with James, and I'm pleased to see that he has created this fascinating and complex story about the ocean and our deep connection to it."
– Jean-Michel Cousteau, Ocean Futures Society
"Luminous, strange, thought-provoking and as profound as the seas, the pelagic brilliance of Underjungle cannot be overstated. This is the brilliant novel Prince Namor would have written had he had more poetry classes."
– Junot Díaz, MFA '95, author of This is How You Lose Her
6:00 pm reception; 6:30 pm lecture. Advance registrations required. Copies of his book will be available for sale at the event.
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