Ginger Strand, Inventing Niagara: Beauty, Power, Lies

Talking Leaves…Books is pleased to announce that we have been chosen to host Ginger Strand, author of the just-released Inventing Niagara: Beauty, Power, Lies (Simon and Schuster), her absorbing new history of the Falls, on her national book tour.  Ms. Strand, hailed as one of the “new, new environmental writers” by Orion Magazine, will discuss the book at our  Main Street store, 3158 Main Street, Buffalo, on Thursday, May 15, at 7 pm; her talk will be followed by a question and answer session and a book signing.  The event is free and open to the public; books will be available for purchase.

Iconic symbol of both scenic majesty and man’s ability to harness the power of nature, Niagara Falls is an indelible piece of the American landscape, both visually and psychically. But as Strand details in her compelling new book, the real story of this breathtaking landmark is larded with falsification, prevarication and omission. Far more than one of the world’s more spectacular waterfalls, it represents the control of nature, the rise of electricity, the nightmares of industrial pollution – and even the birth of the commercialized wedding industry, says Strand, though “ever since its debut as America’s main tourist mecca, Niagara has built a reputation that depends on separating its natural wonder from the artificial accretions around it.”

In a personal narrative that encompasses both natural and cultural history, Strand discovers that “Niagara Falls as a natural wonder doesn’t exist anymore,” that now “the Falls are more a monument to man’s meddling than to nature’s strength.”  As she chronicles the transformation of Niagara from unspoiled natural wonder to industrial behemoth, she also provides an idiosyncratic cultural history of the Falls, investigating Indian legends, the honeymoon tradition, Marilyn Monroe, Love Canal, the Power Authority and Robert Moses, the new Indian casino, and much more. Part love song, part incisive expose, Inventing Niagara takes us to the invisible landscapes disguised by the remade “natural wonder”, providing a rich, clear-eyed, unapologetic reappraisal of a piece of America’s collective soul.

Advance praise for the book has been glowing.  Bill McKibben: “Niagara Falls is where America discovered the sublime.  And Ginger Strand has discovered everything that has happened since.  If you want to understand our relationship with the natural world, you’d better read this book.”   Kirkus Reviews: “..Strand’s ability to ferret out Niagara’s many different symbolic connotations provides fresh vantage points on an icon ‘so familiar, it’s almost hard to see.’” Publishers Weekly:“..Strand’s provocative and iconoclastic book says much about how America has dominated nature, despoiled it and shrouded the offense in myth.”
           
Ginger Strand writes about culture and the natural world for Harper’s, The Believer, and Orion, among others. She has also published a novel, Flight.  A former fellow in the Behrman Center for the Humanities at Princeton, & the recipient of numerous grants for her writing, she lives in New York City, where she teaches writing at Fordham University and the 92nd Street Y.