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Starfall Book Talk & Conversation with Author T. Newyear
“Framing historical and futurist considerations of utopia in a fantastic way felt like the best approach to getting at what makes New Harmony compelling,” Newyear notes. “This isn’t the first novel about New Harmony–it has more fiction and speculation about it than any other small Midwestern town–but it’s the first novel to consider what its future might be, as we confront our impact on climate and the environment.”
New Harmony’s origins may sound eerie familiar: A charismatic, wealthy entrepreneur decides to expand his already successful social experiments in the New World, buying an entire town wholesale and attracting scientists, educational innovators, and artists to what was then the American frontier. It’s a strong reminder that America’s progressive, visionary roots run just as deep as other narratives. “The history of places like New Harmony remind us that America has always been complicated and fraught with conflict and calls for justice and change,” Newyear states, “and that progressives did just as much to forge who we are now as the standard pantheon of more conservative heroes.”
The climate and tech challenges we face right now also resonate with the social and economic strife the Harmonists faced in the 1820s. “Much like our present moment, they had to confront the incredible upheaval of the Industrial Revolution and the turmoil of the French Revolution,” explains Newyear. “Technology upended their reality, in both promising and distressing ways, much as it has ours.”
Like the people who made New Harmony unique, readers are invited to use imagination to overcome the mix of fear and blank hope the planet-wide struggle to address climate change induces–and to see a more balanced, satisfying future together, despite our deep-seated differences. “Robert Owen, one of the driving forces in Harmony’s early history, had a motto that feels really timely for Americans right now,” says Newyear. “‘If we cannot reconcile all opinions, let us strive to unite all hearts.’ It’s not as naive as it sounds, and more imagination, more wrestling with these hard topics, may help us get there.”
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