Good morning, beloved -
I am delighted to be able to share with you the news that I've finished work on the book I've been struggling with for the past few years. It's off with the copy editors now, and out of my hands. The main upshot of this, so far as you and I are concerned, is that regular service here will now resume.
Some fairly interesting things have happened with regard to the book since my last dispatch to you. The most obvious is that the publishers and I have agreed to a change of title: although it still appears on that Amazon pre-order page under its old name and cover design, it's now called Lifehouse: Building Care in the Long Emergency. My editor Leo felt — fairly passionately, as it happens — that the idea of the Lifehouse we'd discussed in that last dispatch was really the book's central value proposition, and that it was a strong enough idea on its own to shape the entire project's design, framing and marketing around.
You might be thinking that it's a little strange to make such major changes so late in a book's evolution, and you'd be right to think that. What seems stranger still, though, to me at least, is that none of the content has changed. The book is still structured and organized around its original title, Beyond Hope: Collective Power and Mutual Care in the Long Emergency. I think the new title is better in quite a few ways, but I do hope that the central message around the necessity of transcending hope isn't lost in the reframing. I also wonder whether readers drawn to a full-length exploration of the Lifehouse won't somewhat feel as though they've been subjected to a bait-and-switch when they find the bulk of the book dedicated instead to discussions of the Black Panther "survival programs," the Greek solidarity clinics, the village assemblies of Rojava and so on.
To some degree, I think this can be prevented by careful selection of blurbs and cover copy, and most of all by deft design choices. And happily, this will require a comprehensive redesign of that cover, which I'd never been screamingly happy about. Here I'm particularly excited that I've been able to convince my publishers to reach out to Chris Lee, who'd done such exceptional work on Not For Sale!, the installation Architects Against Housing Alienation developed as the Canadian pavilion at this year's Venice Biennale of Architecture. We'll see if they're able to work something out, but Chris has the perfect mix of instincts, experiences, and sensibilities I think it'll take to adequately express the complex stew of ideas in this book, and I'm thrilled at the prospect of being able to collaborate on something with him. I'll keep you apprised of the design and other major milestones as the book works its slow way toward publication, but otherwise I have to tell you — writing to you as I am on an October 7th on which it will be 76 degrees fondly Fahrenheit here at 51.5 degrees N — it almost feels like it will come out too late to make anything like the contribution I'd hoped. I guess we'll see.
Anyway, this is all quite inside-baseball. Bottom line is that I'm done, done, blessedly done, and can now turn my attention to various long-neglected projects. Among these, the one I'm most looking forward to is the two- or three-day solo walk across the Cambrian Desert I'd been planning last year, and had to drop when work on the book loomed up and ate my life. Maybe some other endurance events in there, too — I did manage to ride this year's 120-mile, overnight Dunwich Dynamo in June, on my Brompton, yet, and it really put the hook in me. (It is not lost on me that the Dynamo is actually longer than full Ironman length, so successfully completing it puts all kinds of thoughts in my head.) But really it's the planning for a Welsh expotition I'm looking forward to, especially if I manage to pull off what I'm thinking, which is to launch the walk off the back of a few days at the Centre for Alternative Technology in Machynlleth.
Beyond this, there's tons of stuff I want to unpack with you, in more traditional dispatch style, but I'll leave it there for now. For now it's just good to be back with you, and I hope you feel the same way. More (very) soon!
§ Right now I'm reading Andrew Culp's short book Dark Deleuze, as well as Phil Cavell's wonderful The Midlife Cyclist; listening to the entire motherfucking Tzadik catalogue, which was the single major outstanding lacuna in the Spotify library, and seems now to have showed up there overnight; and watching a stack of old Cassavetes films, since nothing new is really grabbing me ATM.
That's it for now. I hope you are well, that you have your feet planted solidly on the good Earth, and that you are doing as I have always asked of you: taking care of those who need you, taking care of yourself, and letting others take care of you.
You have, as ever, all my faith.
ag
ldn
This is Dispatch from London No. 124 of Saturday, 7 October 2023, offered to you under the terms of a Peer Production License. You are free to reuse this content, but must acknowledge Adam Greenfield as its author. ◊