Jennifer Kabat on America's forgotten populist uprising and the politics of place

Send us Fan MailMemoir meets history meets politics in Jennifer Kabat’s book, The Eighth Moon, a fascinating account of moving to the Catskills in 2005, and stumbling on a history of America’s forgotten populist uprising, the Anti-Rent War, that culminated in 1845 with the murder of a police officer, Osman Steele. Drawing on archives, conversations, and her many hikes through the countryside, Kabat favors a writing style that feels akin to an overflowing mind, moving back and forth between eras and observations, daring the reader to keep pace. You could say something similar of Lisa Robertson’s The Baudelaire Fractal, the 2020 novel that Kabat has chosen to discuss for this episode. Her other pick is “Culture and Anarchy,” by the poet Adrienne Rich.