... impressive ... Swanson serves as a candid and empathetic narrator, guiding us with restrained cynicism and enticing prose as he interrogates the stories we tell ourselves to paper over truths we’d rather not face ... The main characters across the essays are all white and mostly men, and Swanson approaches his subjects inquisitively ... his observations are shrewd, so much so that the occasions when he doesn’t probe deep enough stand out as disappointing exceptions ... Throughout Lost in Summerland, Swanson addresses the racism simmering in the cultural fault lines he explores, but he doesn’t directly grapple with the idea of white male predominance and its erosion. In that vacuum sits a handful of missed opportunities ... Swanson finds more questions than answers in his quest, but he reaches a meaningful starting point for treating the ills of our age: elevating the virtue of love above the idea of conquest ... His essays reveal a thinker willing to wrestle with the realization that there is more beyond his sight.
... eloquent ... combines personal essays, journalism, and travelogues into a memorable collection ... personal recollections and reflections mix with on-site reportage, resulting in compelling accounts ... The book’s wide, sophisticated vocabulary makes even its most pedestrian statements and recounted dialogue enjoyable, though its complex wording leads to occasional obfuscation ... Uncommon synonyms are also employed; whether these come across as a matter of artistic license, or as imprecise choices, will depend on the preferences and predilections of the reader ... Swanson’s perspectives are empathetic and honest. The people and situations he describes are considered with the care of a sociologist, but also a sensitive heart. The essay collection Lost in Summerland forwards a smorgasbord of ideas, people, and places, all filtered through the perceptions of a skilled writer.
The book explores what happens when, having put the best words in the best order, the author looks around and doesn’t know where he is. He can’t go back; he can’t make it new—he can only start again. But that humid malaise travels with him, an ambivalent funk he can neither embrace nor wave goodbye to, believe in nor dismiss. He can only name it. Call it Summerland ... Again and again, from its epigraph to its acknowledgments, Swanson’s book tells a story of the end of myth. It’s self-reflexive that way, and unironic, since narrative remains what folks want ... One of the collection’s most powerful essays (and one that compelled me to look up 'lallating,' 'brume,' and 'vade mecum') focuses on a group of antiwar vets who find their own back-to-the-land movement in the soil of an organic farm ... The titular essay, Lost in Summerland, stands out both as the abysm of the book’s rich ambivalence and the moment where the author gives up, seemingly worn down by the effort of not knowing ... It’s a little inveigling...adrift on our hot ponds of ambivalence, to keep rhapsodizing the steam rising off the surface ... yet it’s not the healing promises of organic farming or collective action or even paid time off that stirs the author to belief, but his brother’s baffling clairvoyance.
... unlike other essayists who might use this trope for humor, Swanson is continually looking for meaning and depth ... Swanson searches for sense and narrative in a world that is often senseless and even bleak. While he provides more questions than answers, Swanson’s contemplative collection is relatable, timely, and thought-provoking.
... [Swanson] connects with vivid ideas and people and searches with sensitivity for meaning in life’s vicissitudes ... This wide-ranging work is part literary collection, part cultural examination; it should appeal to armchair travelers interested in learning about different worldviews and finding meaning in the everyday.
In this eloquent and insightful collection of 14 essays, nothing is simple, and everything has a dark side ... Swanson is adept at drawing incisive and sometimes disturbing connections between the searing, often harrowing, experiences that determine an individual's fate within the greater cultural forces and narratives at play ... With clever, elegiac prose that is as thoughtful as it is amusing, Swanson...proves that his is an essential voice in the critique of a simultaneously surreal and vulgar modern age.
Swanson treks deep into conspiracy subreddits, sustainable farms, and spiritual seances in an effort to clarify a cohesive American narrative ... I found Swanson’s quests to possess a shamanistic quality, each excursion of literary reportage like a fully inflated buoy that could guide me back to a shore I’d long lost sight of ... Beyond their exhaustive intelligence, a large part of what makes Lost in Summerland’s fourteen essays so monstrously enjoyable is that they are what James Wood would call 'novelistic essays' ... Anything but forgettable ... Swanson seems to agree that the essay might be a sturdier form than the novel vis-à-vis exploring our country’s most pressing dilemmas ... It’s difficult to express Lost in Summerland’s excellence without using tired descriptors like 'urgent' and 'necessary,' but, alas, the book feels both urgent and necessary. I wish my younger self had had an opportunity to read it.
A probing essay collection that tackles relevant issues emerging in America’s current shaky political and social climate ... With the exception of a couple pieces that miss the mark in their humorous aim, these are mostly tuned-in, absorbing essays. However, the author sometimes relies too heavily on affected wordplay that doesn’t always match the subject matter. In comparison to the crisp prose of a few contemporaries—Jia Tolentino and Zadie Smith come to mind—Swanson’s overly mannered style can be distracting. If he can rein in the tendency to overwrite, this could be the start of a fruitful career ... Intelligent, well-informed essays from a promising if occasionally pedantic writer.
Swanson often accompanies scenes of grief with moments of levity ... Full of measured skepticism, Swanson’s sharp interrogation of contemporary American life hits hard and true.
