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John D'Agata

About a Mountain Hardcover – February 8, 2010

by John D'Agata (Author)

46 ratings

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From “one of the most significant U.S. writers” (David Foster Wallace), an investigation of Yucca Mountain and human destruction in Las Vegas.

When John D’Agata helps his mother move to Las Vegas one summer, he begins to follow a story about the federal government’s plan to store high-level nuclear waste at a place called Yucca Mountain, a desert range near the city of Las Vegas. Bearing witness to the parade of scientific, cultural, and political facts that give shape to Yucca’s story, D’Agata keeps the six tenets of reporting in mind―Who, What, When, Where, Why, and How―arranging his own investigation around each vital question.

Yet as the contradictions inherent in Yucca’s story are revealed, D’Agata’s investigation turns inevitably personal. He finds himself investigating the death of a teenager who jumps off the tower of the Stratosphere Hotel, a boy whom D’Agata believes he spoke with before his suicide.

Here is the work of a penetrating thinker whose startling portrait of a mountain in the desert compels a reexamination of the future of human life.

Print length

240 pages
Language

English
Publisher

W. W. Norton & Company
Publication date

February 8, 2010
Dimensions

5.9 x 0.9 x 8.6 inches
ISBN-10

0393068188
ISBN-13

978-0393068184
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John D'Agata
115
Paperback
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Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Starred Review. In this circuitous, stylish investigation, D'Agata (Halls of Fame) uses the federal government's highly controversial (and recently rejected) proposal to entomb the U.S.'s nuclear waste located in Yucca Mountain, near Las Vegas, as his way into a spiraling and subtle examination of the modern city, suicide, linguistics, Edvard Munch's The Scream, ecological and psychic degradation, and the gulf between information and knowledge. Acting as a counterpoint to Yucca is the story of a teenager named Levi who leapt to his death off Las Vegas' Stratosphere Motel. It is testament to D'Agata skillful organization of the book, broken into Who, What, When, Where, and Why, and his use of a rapid sequences of montages—Levi's suicide is spliced with Orwellian Congressional debates on the stability of Yucca Mountain—that readers will be pleasurably (and perhaps necessarily) disoriented but never distracted from the themes knitting together the ostensibly unrelated voices of Native American activists, politicians, geologists, Levi's parents, D'Agata's own mother, and a host of zany Las Vegans. A sublime reading experience, aesthetically rewarding and marked by moral courage and humility. (Feb.)
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

From Booklist

An innovative essayist (Halls of Fame, 2001) and dynamic anthologist, (The Lost Origins of the Essay, 2009), D’Agata brings his syncopated, collaged, and devastatingly deadpan style to a finely calibrated and nervy inquiry into civic follies. When his mother moves to Las Vegas, D’Agata becomes curious about the collision of science, politics, and corruption behind the ludicrous federal plan to transport deadly nuclear waste cross-country to unstable, porous Yucca Mountain. While trying to collect the outrageous facts about this doomed project, he also gathers troubling information about Nevada’s atomic-bomb test sites and Las Vegas’ dwindling water supply and its standing as the nation’s suicide capital. Shifting between a young man’s leap to his death from the Stratosphere Hotel and the absurd effort to design signage to warn future earthlings away from the proposed radioactive mountain, he sheds light on myriad delusions, scams, and lies. D’Agata’s distinctive narrative rhythms, melancholy wit, and keen perception of the social facade and the toxic darkness it conceals make for an acid test, and a ballad about the endless enigmas of humankind. --Donna Seaman

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ W. W. Norton & Company (February 8, 2010)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Hardcover ‏ : ‎ 240 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0393068188
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0393068184
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 12.4 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.9 x 0.9 x 8.6 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #468,266 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #75 in Mountain Ecology
- #1,068 in Environmentalism
- #1,414 in Cultural Anthropology (Books)

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46 ratings

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John D'Agata

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John D’Agata is the author of Halls of Fame, About a Mountain, and The Lifespan of a Fact, as well as the editor of the 3-volume series A New History of the Essay, which includes the anthologies The Next American Essay, The Making of the American Essay, and The Lost Origins of the Essay. His work has been supported by a Guggenheim Fellowship, a Howard Foundation Fellowship, an NEA Literature Fellowship, and a Lannan Foundation Fellowship. He lives in Iowa City, where he teaches creative writing University of Iowa and directs The Nonfiction Writing Program.

His website is https://www.johndagata.com.

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5 star		47%
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3 star		13%
2 star		15%
1 star		8%

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Top reviews from the United States

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The Heights and Depths of Las Vegas

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 28, 2010

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It's about a mountain. It's about Las Vegas. It's about language change and nuclear waste and semiotics and traffic patterns and Senator Harry Reid and disaster preparedness. It's about living in a new town and Mayor Oscar Goodman and Edvard Munch's The Scream and building demolition and bringing water to the desert.

It's about a boy. A 17-year-old boy who jumps off the tallest building west of the Mississippi.

It's not easy to pin down what About a Mountain is about, despite the name. It moves quickly and covers a lot of ground. It never drags and I found that I was interested in everything author John D'Agata had to say.

His explanation of the Yucca Mountain controversy was the most enlightening I have read, making a complicated political football perfectly understandable. The proposed nuclear waste site is about 90 miles from Las Vegas. The problem of storing nuclear waste safely is difficult, maybe impossible. In addition, transporting all the country's nuclear waste, a massive amount, probably by truck, would hold its own set of dangers.

But even if your eyes glaze over at the prospect of Yucca mountain, you might be interested to learn about the culture of building demolition as spectator sport in Las Vegas, and the special complications of imploding a tall building like the 1,149 foot high Stratosphere. You might be fascinated to learn about the Boneyard, the dusty lot in Las Vegas where historic and not so historic neon signs are stored. Or about the remnants of the early days of Las Vegas that are being revealed as Lake Mead, the city's major source of water, drops to lower and lower levels.

And then there's the boy (the title evokes that of Nick Hornby's book About a Boy ), whose suicide D'Agata can't get out of his mind.

Social commentary, literary nonfiction, or Las Vegas memoir? In addition to not being able to pin down what it's about, I can't pigeonhole it into any one category. I don't even know whether it's a short book or a long essay. Never mind, it's a quick read that's fascinating now matter what you call it.

Las Vegas: The Social Production of an All-American City

Neon Metropolis: How Las Vegas Started the Twenty-First Century

Suburban Xanadu: The Casino Resort on the Las Vegas Strip and Beyond

12 people found this helpful

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Dave Morris

A Deeply-Flawed, Irresponsible Book That Should Never Have Been Published

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 5, 2019

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The author is somewhat famous for his arrogant disregard for the traditional standards of nonfiction that have given us works like IN COLD BLOOD and INTO THE WILD. Most of the quotes in ABOUT A MOUNTAIN have been altered, most of the statistics are misreported and/or misrepresented and the number of factual inaccuracies in this book run into the hundreds. I don't understand how D'Agata is able to hold down an academic job at the University of Iowa when he's violated and even mocked the basic ethical standards of nonfiction. His disregard for the facts, sophistry and general disregard for other people's stories are a matter of public record. In short, John D'Agata is a charlatan, a fraud, a writer who's been running a long con on American academia and publishing for many years--just read The New Yorker's review of his books.

4 people found this helpful

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lowbudgetfun

Very depressing

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on February 26, 2010

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I just finished "About A Mountain" by John D'Agata, which happens to be one of the most depressing books I've read. What starts out as an investigation about Yucca Mountain, the government's proposed site for longterm storage of nuclear waste, turns into a thorough (and thoroughly depressing) treatise on the futility of knowledge. So complete is D'Agata's conclusion I can't help but wish I never read his book.

8 people found this helpful

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Mark P.

About a Mountain by john D'Agata

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on May 25, 2010

Verified Purchase

Other reviewers have more than adequately described what is in this book so I'll just get right to what I think the book is about and that is, America at a certain point in its history, that is to say NOW. A future historian will find this polemic invaluable despite its disguise as fiction. As simply a reader I found it appalling and brilliant. I am used to being pessimistic about where America is going but now I am beginning to think the Empire is teetering on the edge of the abyss.

3 people found this helpful

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Tech Needs

A slow burn, but worthwhile

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 28, 2016

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The beginning of the book is slow and overwhelming with statistics and seemingly unneeded information, but a masterclass of truth and false truths brings it together in the end with a strong message.

One person found this helpful

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gpetrov

If you are looking for a deeper understanding this is NOT the book

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 3, 2016

Verified Purchase

If you are looking for a book to get a deeper understanding of the Yucca Mountain project, or of the problem of what to do with nuclear waste, or of energy storage, or of the history of Nevada or Las Vegas, or if you have any understanding of science or statistics this is not the book for you. Reads like the essay of a creative writing undergrad.

2 people found this helpful

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Peter K. Eriksson

full of wonder and melancholy

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on August 21, 2013

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Quite a feat of virtuosity, D'Agata managed to capture disparate parts of Las Vegas like in gossamer prose and instill a wonder for the city that is at once mysterious and haunting.

One person found this helpful

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peregrine

Hire a good, strong editor!

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 18, 2011

Verified Purchase

Being a native of Southern Nevada, I totally agree with the premise that Yucca Mountain is a REALLY bad idea and a rogue project at best. The author makes a very good case on that front. Unfortunately his thesis should have ended there, eliminating the random walks to his various sets of other knowledge. He is in desperate need of a good strong editor who would have kept focus and who would have encouraged him to stop at the point at which he had made his case.

6 people found this helpful

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