A cult-favorite nature writer discusses his memoir of climbing, California, and the double-sided coin of legacy and preservation.
About the Book
In Daniel Duane’s childhood, John Muir was an apostle and prophet, the man who taught Californians to love nature. Duane's family worshipped in the Muir way by backpacking, skiing, and climbing. They read the scripture, too, from Muir's earnest essays to the memoirs of the charismatic geologist Clarence King to classic accounts of Indigenous California. Paradise, for Duane's family, was Yosemite National Park. For Duane, though, devotional study of Yosemite meant confrontation with its nuanced, violent—and sometimes absurd—history.
In Yosemite Falls, Duane tells the story of his family and the park, populated by the characters of his own life and of California’s past. His beloved outdoorsman father, who taught him to climb and cast a long shadow. His mother, his wife, and his daughters, who all share his passion for the outdoors. Ishi, who in 1911 was the last living member of the Yahi people, taken in as an object of study by UC Berkeley. And Muir himself, whose messy biography and Victorian worldview forced Duane into a painful apostasy about California’s “great” men and their gospel of the wild. Yosemite Falls is a vital and exuberant correction to the canon, offering an idiosyncratic new history of wilderness in the Golden State, where white supremacy, cultural theft, and governmental overreach abound.
With wry humor and inimitable style, Duane has crafted a book that is both playful and moving, at once a memoir of life in the mountain west and a reckoning with the true legacies of his family’s ecological heroes.
About the Speaker
Daniel Duane is the author of six books, including the novel Looking for Mo, the climbing memoir Lighting Out: A Vision of California and the Mountains, and the cult-classic surfing memoir Caught Inside: A Surfer’s Year on the California Coast. He has been a contributor to The New York Times for three decades, and his writing has also appeared in Outside, The Guardian, GQ, Alta, Men’s Journal, and The Best American Science and Nature Writing. He lives and practices psychotherapy in San Francisco
ACCESSIBILITY: We never want cost to be a barrier to admission for our community. Please email events [at] keplers [dot] org if you would like to attend this event but cannot afford a ticket. To request an accommodation under the Americans with Disabilities Act (ADA) for this event, please email events [at] keplers [dot] org at least one week prior to the event.
REFUND POLICY: We will refund your ticket up to 7 days before the event.
We want Kepler’s to be a welcoming and comfortable space for everyone. If you are feeling unwell, especially with respiratory symptoms, please stay home. Thank you for helping us create a safe and considerate environment for our community.