Timothy Egan, The Immortal Irishman ***

Wow, there's a lot in this biography of Thomas Meagher. Meagher was a young Irish revolutionary who barely avoided execution in Ireland, escaped from the penal colony of Tasmania, led a regiment of Irish soldier in the U.S. Civil War, and served as governor of the Montana Territory. The author wants to place Meagher's story in context, so the book covers centuries of English oppression in Ireland, the history of the Australian penal colonies, the politics and major battles of the Civil War, and the settlement of the West under the Homestead Act. Egan crafts a smooth narrative with evocative details, but with so much ground to cover it's necessarily superficial.

Frankly, Meagher's story gets lost in the bigger picture. His personality remains opaque beyond his commitment to justice for the downtrodden, and supporting characters such as his wives get even shorter shrift. He is most famous as an orator, but the excerpts of his speeches are uninspiring.

Meagher led an impressively expansive life, and The Immortal Irishman enumerates the key events competently. However, the scope drained many incidents of their inherent drama. 

Hernan Diaz, In the Distance **** 1/2

In the Distance is a Western of sorts, about a Swedish boy who gets separated from his brother en route to New York, ends up in San Francisco, and sets out to cross the country to find his brother. The book is filled with remarkable images, starting on the very first page:

The hole, a broken star on the ice, was the only interruption on the white plain merging into the white sky. No wind, no life, no sound. A pair of hands came out of the water and groped for the edges of the angular hole. It took the searching fingers some time to climb up the thick inner walls of the opening, which resembled the cliffs of a miniature cañon, and find their way to the surface. Having reached over the edge, they hooked into the snow and pulled. A head emerged.

It's our hero, Håkan, who lifts himself from his ice bath and soon dons his "coat made from the skins of lynxes and coyotes, beavers and bears, caribou and snakes, foxes and prairie dogs, coatis and pumas, and other unknown beasts."

Håkan has many adventures, but the most notable thing about his lonely existence is how often it returns to unfeatured landscapes, usually white like the ice, the salt flats, or the mirror he finds reflecting the pitiless sun on the desert.

The tone of the story reminded me of the Jim Jarmusch film Dead Man. It's filled with the tropes of a Western, but they are used in an oblique and allegorical way.

Jill Heinerth, Into the Planet ***

The subtitle of this memoir is "My Life as a Cave Diver," but Heinerth's adventures are not limited to the water. A surprising amount of the book describes diving-adjacent activities, such as hiking in the jungles of Mexico, sailing the Southern Ocean to Antartica, and fending off burglars. Her descriptions of dives are engaging, especially the caves inside an iceberg and the honeymoon trip where she got the bends, but they aren't the part that made the strongest impression. Heinerth relates each story as if she's giving a Toastmasters speech, with its life lesson made explicit at the end:

But when we transcend the fear of failure and terror of the unknown, we are all capable of great things, personally and as a society. ... If we continue to trek purposefully toward our dreams, into the planet and beyond, we just might achieve the impossible.

I compared this book to the mountaineering memoirs I've read. The defining feature of world class mountaineers is their off-kilter personalities and value systems. Heinerth, on the other hand, comes across as level-headed and invested in rationalizing her decisions based on common values. I will say, though, that she and the other divers come across as surprisingly unconcerned about others' welfare: numerous stories show divers purposely turning a blind eye to their partners' difficulties. It's surprising in such a collaborative activity.

Cave diving: it's not for me.

Richard Powers, The Overstory **** 1/2

Richard Powers is an excellent writer. His prose doesn't draw attention to itself, but effectively communicates through deep-rooted metaphor. Knowing that its main characters are environmental activists -- and reading the two-page prologue -- I was afraid the The Overstory would become too righteous or mystical for my taste. But Powers is a scientifically-minded writer who keeps the tone grounded even when the characters get righteous or mystical. In a way, The Overstory is told from the trees' point of view, but it never feels as sappy or gimmicky as that sounds. Instead, it quietly manages to "decenter the human as the source of all meaning and value," as Michael Pollan is quoted on the back cover.

The first section, "Roots," introduces nine characters through their life stories, all of which feature a tree as a prominent element. The stories serve as a compelling background when the characters meet and interact in the second section, "Trunk." Personally, I found one of the characters, Neelay, far less involving than the rest. Neelay is a computer programmer; despite Powers' background as a programmer, the prose in the Neelay parts sounds like the author doesn't fully grasp the concepts. The natural sections are so much more authoritative.

The book is filled with strong images and is thought-provoking even though its overall environmental message is simple.