Last year at Kew Gardens

Emily McVarish

"Last Year at Kew Gardens is composed of words lifted from an 1858 guide to Kew Gardens and a 1961 screenplay by Alain Robbe-Grillet. Intercutting moments of inner life with global news headlines, the text attempts to track the phenomenology of media consumption and grasp how individuals metabolize world events. The book borrows its sweeping approach and contrasting scales from the tradition of the "world landscape" (Weltlandschaft). It uses the "language of cinema" to position subjectivity and the microcosm of a botanical garden to relate devastating personal experiences to the apocalyptic implications of climatic, economic, and political trends."--Granarybooks.com.