A FIELD GUIDE TO THE SUBTERRANEAN

Appealing scenes from a neurotic life.

Hocking, author of The Great Floodgates of the Wonderworld, teaches creative writing at Portland State University. He begins with his childhood in 1970s rural western Colorado, dazzlingly beautiful, sullied by mining, and experiencing the final stages of Project Plowshare, where nuclear bombs were detonated underground to explore their peaceful use for construction projects. A latchkey kid with parents already divorced, he collected local minerals, explored caves, skied the hills, and was scarred by a neighbor, an adolescent male babysitter who often sexually abused him. A follow-up to his highly praised previous book, a memoir of his early adult years, he rewinds the clock, but readers expecting his coming-of-age will discover that he never achieves it. Fortunately, this doesn’t seem to be his intention. There is only a sketchy mention of his childhood abuse, which doesn’t seem to have permanently damaged him, although he deals with an ongoing collection of neuroses. The book’s three parts are divided into an account of his early life, the only section where the “subterranean” is literal as he explores caves and abandoned mines and recounts Colorado mining disasters as well as his personal travails. In the second, as a young man, he is so fascinated by the Outward Bound experience that he trains as a leadership instructor. His first expedition is a personal disaster, when one student wanders off into the wilderness, requiring a massive five-day search-and-rescue operation that leaves him with a post-traumatic stress disorder. Rural Costa Rica dominates the final section. Now a dedicated bird watcher, he tours a national park under an expert local guide and witnesses wildlife but also learns of the often dispiriting life in a relatively prosperous and stable nation.

A dreamy mixture of memoir, natural history, and environmental worries.