Mark Sundeen – författare

Mark Sundeen needed to stage a comeback. His first book was little read, rarely reviewed, and his book tour was cancelled. So when a careless big city publisher calls with an offer for a book about bullfighting, Mark assumes this is his best and last chance to follow the trajectory of his literary heroes. To be sure, Sundeen has never been to a bullfight. He doesn''t speak Spanish. He''s not even a particularly good reporter. Come to think of it, he''s probably one of the least qualified people to write a book about bullfighting, even in the best of circumstances. But that doesn''t stop Mark Sundeen. After squandering most of the book advance on back rent and debts, Sundeen can''t afford a trip to Spain, so he settles for nearby Mexico. But the bullfighting he finds south of the border is tawdry and comical, and people seem much more interested in the concessions and sideshows. There''s little of the passion and artistry and bravery that he''d hoped to employ in exhibiting his literary genius to the masses. To compensate for his own shortcomings as an author, Sundeen invents an alter ego, Travis LaFrance, a swashbuckling adventure writer, in the tradition of his idol, Ernest Hemingway. But as his research falters, his money runs out, and the deadline approaches, Sundeen''s high-minded fantasies are skewered by his second-rate reality. Eventually, Travis LaFrance steps in to take control, and our narrator goes blundering through the landscape of his own dreams and delusions, propelled solely by a preposterous, quixotic, and ultimately heartbreaking insistence that his own life story, no matter how crummy, is worth being told in the pages of Great Literature. The Making of Toro is a unique comic classic, a hilarious poke in the ribs of self-important "literary memoirs," and also a sly, poignant tale of the hazards of trying too hard to turn real life into high art.

Mark Sundeen receives a call from a big city publisher with an offer to write a book about bullfighting in Spain. Sundeen agrees, assuming that this is his best and last chance to follow the trajectory of his literary heroes, despite the fact that he has never been to a bullfight, doesn't speak Spanish, and is not even a particularly good reporter. After squandering most of the book advance, Sundeen can't afford a trip to Spain, so he settles for nearby Mexico. But the bullfighting he finds there is tawdry and comical, and there's little of the passion and bravery that he'd hoped to employ in exhibiting his literary genius to the masses. To compensate for his own shortcomings as an author, Sundeen invents an alter ego, Travis LaFrance, a swashbuckling adventure writer in the tradition of Sundeen's idol, Ernest Hemingway. When LaFrance steps in, our narrator goes blundering through the landscape of his own dreams and delusions, propelled solely by the preposterous insistence that his own life story, no matter how crummy, is worth being told in the pages of Great Literature. The Making of Toro is a unique comic classic and a sly, poignant tale of the hazards of trying too hard to turn real life into high art.

In these new and selected essays, Mark Sundeen recounts two decades of political activism, outdoor exploration, and empathetic curiosity. He was both witness to and active participant in pivotal cultural and political events of the new millennium, from Howard Dean's presidential campaign to the Iraq War protests and the NoDAPL uprising in Standing Rock. But what brings these large phenomena into humanistic focus is the cast of idiosyncratic people he meets. Using first-person reportage, well-crafted storytelling, and wry, self-deprecating humor, Sundeen's keen observations illustrate what everyday life is like for people in the contemporary American West, with all their systemic precarities and individual triumphs.

For fans of Jack Kerouac and Nomadland, from the author of The Man Who Quit Money, this road-trip novel puts the auto in autofiction as it crisscrosses the late-nineties Southwest in search of authenticity and adventure. At the end of the twentieth century, a young house painter in Southern California abandons his rollers to take a stab at living in the Right Now. (Mis)adventures ensue as his belated coming-of-age unfolds in fits and starts across thousands of miles of dirt road and desert highway, helped or hindered by a parade of strangers, hitchhikers, swingers, dealers, campers, loners, losers, and would-be lovers.

Grand Prize Winner of the 2015 Green Book Festival Mark Sundeen''s new book, The Unsettlers, is coming in January 2017 from Riverhead BooksIn 2000, Daniel Suelo left his life savings-all thirty dollars of it-in a phone booth. He has lived without money-and with a newfound sense of freedom and security-ever since. The Man Who Quit Money is an account of how one man learned to live, sanely and happily, without earning, receiving, or spending a single cent. Suelo doesn''t pay taxes, or accept food stamps or welfare. He lives in caves in the Utah canyonlands, forages wild foods and gourmet discards. He no longer even carries an I.D. Yet he manages to amply fulfill not only the basic human needs-for shelter, food, and warmth-but, to an enviable degree, the universal desires for companionship, purpose, and spiritual engagement. In retracing the surprising path and guiding philosophy that led Suelo into this way of life, Sundeen raises provocative and riveting questions about the decisions we all make, by default or by design, about how we live-and how we might live better.From the Trade Paperback edition.

“An in-depth and compelling account of diverse Americans living off the grid.” —Los Angeles TimesThe radical search for the simple life in today’s America. On a frigid April night, a classically trained opera singer, five months pregnant, and her husband, a former marine biologist, disembark an Amtrak train in La Plata, Missouri, assemble two bikes, and pedal off into the night, bound for a homestead they''ve purchased, sight unseen. Meanwhile, a horticulturist, heir to the Great Migration that brought masses of African Americans to Detroit, and her husband, a product of the white flight from it, have turned to urban farming to revitalize the blighted city they both love. And near Missoula, Montana, a couple who have been at the forefront of organic farming for decades navigate what it means to live and raise a family ethically.   A work of immersive journalism steeped in a distinctively American social history and sparked by a personal quest, The Unsettlers traces the search for the simple life through the stories of these new pioneers and what inspired each of them to look for -- or create -- a better existence. Captivating and clear-eyed, it dares us to imagine what a sustainable, ethical, authentic future might actually look like.

Sig Hansen has been a star of the Channel 4's The Deadliest Catch from the pilot to the present. Seen in over 150 countries, the show attracts more than 49 million viewers per season, making it one of the most successful series in the history of cable TV. With its daredevil camera work, unpredictably dangerous weather, and a setting as unforgivable and unforgettable as the frigid Bering Sea, The Deadliest Catch is unlike anything else on television.But the weatherworn fishermen of the fishing vessel Northwestern have stories that don't come through on TV. For Sig Hansen and his brothers, commercial fishing is as much a part of their Norwegian heritage as their names. Descendents of the Vikings who roamed and ruled the northern seas for centuries, the Hansens' connection to the sea stretches from Alaska to Seattle and all the way to Norway. And after twenty years as a skipper on the commercial fishing vessel the Northwestern -- which was his father's before him -- Sig has lived to tell the tales.To be a successful fisherman, you need to be a mechanic, navigator, welder, painter, carpenter, and sometimes, a firefighter. To be a successful fisherman year after year, you need to be a survivor.This is the story of a family of survivors; part memoir and part adventure tale, North by Northwestern brings readers on deck, into the dockside bars and into the history of a family with a common destiny. Built around a gripping tale of a deadly shipwreck like The Perfect Storm, North by Northwestern is the multi-generational tale of the Hansen family, a clan of tough Norwegian-American fishermen who, through the popularity of The Deadliest Catch, have become modern folk-heroes.