Peter Wheelwright | Peter Matthiessen Wheelwright Bio And Book

PEN/Hemingway Honorable Mention for Literary Excellence

"There is no lack of ambition or artistry in Wheelwright’s As It Is On Earth. A truly remarkable debut.” – Helen Schulman, author of Come with Me and This Beautiful Life

"A richly layered tale of a spiritual coming of age…a contemporary rendering of Cain and Abel with Bunyan's Pilgrim's Progress.” – Wesley Brown, author of Tragic Magic and Darktown Strutters

...And be sure to visit Dies Iovis: Ergo...

Where Disconnected Facts Have a Way of Connecting

AS IT IS ON EARTH
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Four centuries after the Reformation Pilgrims sailed up the down-flowing watersheds of New England, Taylor Thatcher, irreverent scion of a fallen family of Maine Puritans, is still caught in the Age of Discovery's turbulent encounter between the natural and civilized world.

With its "oddball cast of dreamers and alcoholic holy men, stargazers and crack mystics, naturalists and sidetracked philosophers," As It Is On Earth recounts Thatcher's errant attempts to escape from a past that was not of his own making. Along his journey, the young college professor is further unsettled by his growing attraction to Israeli student Miryam Bluehm as he is swept by Time through the “family thing” – from the tangled genetic and religious history of his New England parents to the redemptive birthday secret of Esther Fleur Noire Bishop, the Cajun-Passamaquoddy woman who raised him and his younger half-cousin/half-brother, Bingham.

The landscapes, rivers, and tidal estuaries of Old New England and the Mayan Yucatan are also casualties of history in Thatcher’s story of Deep Time and re-discovery of family on Columbus Day at a high-stakes gambling casino, rising in resurrection over the starlit bones of a once-vanquished Pequot Indian Tribe.

Click here to read more about As It Is On Earth…and/or download the first chapter

Peter Matthiessen Wheelwright is a writer, educator, and architect. He is Emeritus Professor at The New School, Parsons School of Design where he teaches architecture, environmental philosophy, and design theory. More...

As It Is On Earth, his debut novel, received a 2013 PEN/Hemingway Honorable Mention for Literary Excellence and a Pushcart Prize nomination.

His new novel, The Door-Man, is being published in early 2022. Pre-orders now available. More...

2013 PEN/Hemingway Honorable Mention for Literary Excellence

"There is no lack of ambition or artistry in As It Is On Earth, a complex tapestry of the collisions between civilization and nature, science and religion, among other minor topics. A remarkable debut.” – Helen Schulman, author of This Beautiful Life

“Wheelwright is a natural born writer with a gift for seeing the links, often obscure, elusive and contradictory, that connect and hold one generation fast to another.”– Alec Wilkinson, author of The Ice Balloon

"Young Taylor Thatcher's world is messy and contradictory, saturated with desire and utterly intoxicating...As in the best of novels, As It Is On Earth both broke my heart and gave me great faith in acts of forgiveness..." – Lisa Fugard, author of Skinner's Drift

Be sure to visit Dies Iovis: Ergo...
Where Disconnected Facts Have a Way of Connecting

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