Endangered species

Why are there no more rugged, self-reliant he-men like the subject of Elizabeth Gilbert's "The Last American Man"? Because no women will put up with them.

By Laura Miller

Jul 3, 2002 | Despite its determinedly sprightly tone, the chief impression left by Elizabeth Gilbert's "The Last American Man," a book-length profile of one Eustace Conway, is that of a terrible loneliness. At one point Conway compares himself to Ishi, the sole surviving member of a California Indian tribe who was taken in and studied by anthropologists in the early 20th century. "[I'm] the last of my kind," Conway laments, "stranded. Just trying to communicate. Trying to teach people something. But constantly misunderstood."

Gilbert thinks Conway is the last of his kind, too, but they seem to have slightly different conceptions of what his kind is. Conway sees himself as a woodsman, in the tradition of such boyhood heroes as Daniel Boone. As a child he embarked on an extremely methodical and focused campaign to teach himself how to live in the wild, and he became very good at it. He's an expert hunter who knows how to turn his prey into clothing as well as food. For years at a time he lived in the forests of North Carolina in a teepee he made himself. He carved his own bowls from wood and made his own pots from creek clay. He wove baskets and started fires without matches. He hiked all 2,000 miles of the Appalachian Trail, eating only what he could catch or forage along the way. He rode a horse across America.

Gilbert sees Conway as both the consummate woodsman and as the last specimen of something she holds dear, a classic American man. It's not quite clear if Conway himself finds the question of masculinity very compelling (although at one point Gilbert describes him as regretting the vanishing of coming-of-age rituals for boys), but for Gilbert it's the crux of the matter. For her, Conway truly is what the rest of American men can only imagine themselves being; "computer programmers, biogenetic researchers, politicians, or media moguls" may call themselves "maverick," or "pioneer," but Conway is both things in actuality.

"He makes true a notion of frontier identity that has long since passed most men of his generation, most of whom are left with nothing but the vocabulary," Gilbert writes. "We've based our American masculine identity on that brief age of exploration and romantic independence and westward settlement. We hold on to that identity, long after it has any actual relevance, because we like the idea so much. That's why, I believe, so many men in this country carry a residual notion of themselves as pioneers."

All this makes Conway the walking embodiment of archetypal American manhood: resourceful, competent, intrepid, independent. A heavy symbolic load to carry, but Conway does seem up for the job; "I've never found anything to be particularly difficult," he tells Gilbert (though we later learn that's not entirely true). Most importantly, Conway possesses a trait that is, in its own way, just as quintessentially American as the frontier virtues: he's an evangelist. He learned how to live on his own in the woods, merging with "the high art and godliness of nature," and he has devoted himself to spreading this message: You can, too.

If Conway were in fact living alone in the wilderness, his loneliness would make more sense. Instead, he's spent much of his life proselytizing, urging people to give up an existence swamped in "smog, plastic, and a never-ending babble of nonsense enough to scramble brains, raise blood pressure, create ulcers and sponsor heart disease" to live in the woods. Gilbert testifies to his charisma in preaching this doctrine; she's seen him captivate a roomful of rowdy high school students and "the scariest posse of drug dealers you'd ever want to meet" in New York's Tompkins Square Park.

Conway makes money speaking to classes of schoolchildren and at county fairs, gives interviews to the press and takes on apprentices at Turtle Island, his camp, where he teaches young people how to live off the land. He's had a series of beautiful, strong, capable girlfriends and many worshipful disciples. And yet these people, no matter how much they may idolize Conway at first, have a way of getting fed up and walking out on him. Despite his heartfelt desire for a wife and children, he has neither.

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