An impassioned mediation on American identity and its ebb and flow through the Capital’s great waterway
As she walks the length of the Potomac River, clambering up its banks and sounding its depths, Charlotte Taylor Fryar examines the geography and ecology of Washington, D.C. with all manner of flora and fauna as her witness. The ecological traces of human inhabitancy provide her with imaginative access into America’s past, for her true subject is the origin of our splintered nation and racially divided capital.
From the gentrified neighborhood of Shaw to George Washington’s slave labor camp at Mount Vernon, Potomac Fever maps the troubled histories of the United States by leading us along the less-trafficked trails and side streets of our capital city, steeped in the legacy of white supremacy and colonialism. In the end, Fryar offers hope for how “we might grow a society guided by the ethics and values of the places we live.”
A compelling synthesis of historical, environmental, and personal narrative, Potomac Fever exposes the roots of our national myths, awash in the waters of America’s renowned river.
Out now from Bellevue Literary Press
Things people have said about Potomac Fever
“Written with verve and a profound understanding of the contradictions of American democracy. . . . Readers might curl up with [Fryar’s] book in the comfort of home or, after visiting the Lincoln Memorial and Washington Monument, take it with them on a stroll along [the Potomac]. . . . A lovely ode to an oft-neglected river.”
“For readers looking for a different lens through which to view the U.S. capital and to see both the ugly impacts of racism and the beauty of nature.”
“Both a love letter to the Potomac and a sharp critique of American myths, Potomac Fever is a lyrical and thought-provoking debut.”
— Jennifer Rothschild, Arlington Public Library in Arlington Magazine (Arlington, VA)
Fryar seamlessly weaves a fascinating history of racial, class, and gendered divisions that exist in and outside of Washington, D.C.’s quintessential worlds of interrelated nature and American (in)humanity.
— Marcie Cohen Ferris, coeditor of Southern Cultures journal & author of The Edible South
“Provocative. . . . Starting with a love of the river and the plants around it, the evocative descriptions are joined by political and social histories that define who lives where and the impacts of pollution and climate change. An important read about a place that defines us all.”
— Jan Blodgett, Main Street Books (Davidson, NC)