True Nature: The Pilgrimage of Peter Matthiessen

PULITZER PRIZE FINALIST • NAMED A NOTABLE BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE WASHINGTON POST • A BEST BOOK OF THE YEAR BY THE NEW YORKER AND VOGUE • The first biography of Peter Matthiessen, the novelist, naturalist, and Zen roshi, whose trailblazing work championed Native American rights and helped usher in the modern environmental movement, by award-winning writer Lance Richardson. Underlying all Matthiessen's disparate pursuits was the same existential search—to find a cure for 'deep restlessness.' This search was most profoundly articulated in The Snow Leopard, his famous account of a 250-mile wildlife survey across the Himalayas. In True Nature, Lance Richardson reconstructs the full scope of a spiritual quest that ultimately led Matthiessen, even as he inflicted great pain on his family, to the highest ranks of Zen.