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Jake Halpern
Born in 1975 in Buffalo, New York, Jake Halpern attended Yale University. He has written for the The New Yorker, the New Republic, Commonweal, the Jerusalem Report and other magazines. Unlike the people in this book, he comes from a family with a long tradition of leaving places: his great-grandmother immigrated to America, returned home to Hungary, then immigrated to America once again; his grandfather was so desperate to get out of New York that he took a job chipping paint on a giant freighter bound for California via the Panama Canal. Jake Halpern has lived in New Haven, Prague, Tel Aviv, Washington, D.C., and India. For now, he lives in Cambridge, Massachusetts.
Photo © Neil Giordano
BRAVING HOME
When Jake Halpern was a cub reporter, he became obsessed with stories about "some outlandish and often hellish place, inhabited by a handful of stalwarts who refused to leave." His fellow reporters joked with him and nicknamed him the Bad Homes Correspondent. But the more he learned about these people, the more he was drawn to them.
Determined to understand their fierce devotion to home, Halpern set off on a journey to five of the most punishing towns in America. In North Carolina, he met a retired mill worker who single-handedly manned his hometown in the wake of a devastating flood. In Alaska, Halpern traveled to an "indoor town" — a lone snowbound high-rise. At the base of a Hawaiian volcano, he stayed with a hermit whose house was surrounded by molten lava. In Malibu, nestled among the glitterati, a family of hillbillies had been battling wildfires for generations. Finally, on a barrier island off the coast of Louisiana, a legendary storm-rider told of surviving hurricanes — even if it meant tying one"s hair to a tree.
Funny, insightful, and often moving, Braving Home introduces us to modern American pioneers. Throughout his journey, Halpern explores the value of rootedness in an age when our society is more mobile than ever. Along the way, he discovers why no amount of floods, lava, wind, fire, or hurricanes can tug these unforgettable people from their roots.
Jake Halpern's Summer Reading List
The Lion's Grave: Dispatches from Afganistan
by Jon Lee Anderson
For almost two years now I have been reading Jon Lee Anderson's dispatches in the New Yorker with awe. He is perhaps the toughest, smartest, most agile war correspondent that I have ever encountered. His writing -- which often portrays the fragile inner lives of ordinary Afghanis -- was really my only insight into what it was like on the ground in Afghanistan before and after the Taliban fell. This compilation of dispatches is a long awaited treat.
Bay of Souls
by Robert Stone
As a long time Stone fan, I look forward to reading his seventh novel, a psychological thriller involving high-stakes smuggling, voodoo, and a sadistic, erotic romance -- in short, all the trapping of Stone's typically dark and brilliant prose. Stone is the big man of American letters, perhaps in a class only with Philip Roth, and his new novel has already received high praise. Incidentally, he is
also on tour, so look for a reading near you.
East of Eden
by John Steinbeck
This is an epic family saga set in turn of the century California. The paperback edition that I have goes for more than 600 pages! The characters in this novel, especially the charming
Irishman Samuel Hamilton, are wonderfully alive -- speaking in finely nuanced, lyrical dialogue. Even as a reread, this book won't disappoint.
Baghdad without a Map: And Other Misadventures in Arabia
by Tony Horwitz
This is, without a doubt, the best travel book I have ever read. It's alive with the wild, bustling tumult of the Middle East. Horwitz is perhaps the perfect narrator, blending a youthful curiosity with wit and pathos to create a journey that you wish will never end. For young writers or adventurers contemplating an epic journey of their own, this book is a must read. I have read it
several times and will probably pick it up again.
Harvard Works Because We Do
by Greg Halpern
Although this book is not due out until September, I am eagerly awaiting its release. Halpern -- a young Harvard grad with a gift for taking electrifying photographic portraits -- has put together a book of interviewers and photographs of Harvard's underpaid janitors and service workers. In the spirit of James Agee and Walker Evans, this book promises to give a searing examination of poverty, and all with the confines of America's greatest bastion of privilege.
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