This Ordinary Stardust

January 1, 2024

An Aldo Leopold Leadership Fellow and a Google Science Communication Fellow, renowned ecologist Townsend merges science and spirituality as he explores scientific wonder and muses on how its focus and beauty create awe and helped him endure a horrific family tragedy. Prepub Alert.

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Starred review from April 15, 2024
Biologist Townsend recounts in his gut-wrenching debut memoir how the cancer diagnoses of his wife and daughter reshaped his ideas about scientific inquiry. When Townsend’s daughter, Neva, was four, an MRI revealed a tumor in her pituitary gland that could only be removed with invasive brain surgery. While Neva recovered from that procedure, Townsend’s wife, fellow scientist Diana, discovered she had two deadly, inoperable glioblastoma brain tumors. As Townsend navigated the ups and downs of Diana’s illness for the final year of her life—and of counseling Neva through it, at one point allaying her concerns that she’d passed the cancer onto her mother—he began to think in new ways about his chosen profession. He found solace in the idea that people consist of “trillions of outer-space atoms, moving around temporarily as one, sensing and seeing and falling in love” before scattering to join “a new team.” Therefore, microscopic pieces of loved ones live forever. Such musings, rendered in lyrical but not too precious prose, convincingly mix with the book’s more somber passages to produce a powerful message of hope, which Townsend accentuates with loving, indelible portraits of Neva and Diana. The result is a remarkable account of a shifting consciousness that’s likely to shift the reader’s own. Agent: Anna Sproul-Latimer, Neon Literary.

April 15, 2024
A memoir about the family, tragedy, and the spiritual possibilities of radical ecological sensitivity. A decade ago, Townsend reveals in this probing memoir, he confronted the gravest of news: Both his wife and daughter had developed brain cancer. In his account of navigating these circumstances, he explains that an understanding of the interconnectedness of all creation, one that bridged strictly rational and religious perspectives, proved salvific for him. Drawing on his own knowledge as an environmental scientist, Townsend juxtaposes descriptions of ecological cycles with his own evolving understanding of loss and grief. A crucial consolation, he reveals, emerged in becoming more aware of the ways in which he and all other humans belong, quite literally, to one another: Since all of us are involved in a perpetual exchange of material elements--"stardust"--we "may well contain some part of every human ever" in the trillions of cells that make up our bodies. In frank and moving terms, the author sets forth how properly reckoning with this truth and its myriad implications prompted a spiritual transformation in him, marked by an urgent awareness of the humble significance of every human life. It also underscored a need to acknowledge the importance of transcending mere materialist thinking: "An evangelistic belief in science as the source of all answers is both limiting and dangerous." Townsend's appeals for the broader relevance of his experience are compelling, and his writing drives home, in clear and often heart-wrenching terms, how our understanding of human suffering might benefit from a certain kind of spiritual reframing. This is not a book that provides easy answers to life's most difficult questions, but one that suggests plausible means of reconceiving our place within a relentlessly fluid universe. An insightful exploration of loss and the role of intellectual curiosity and spiritual openness in addressing it.

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May 15, 2024
The diagnosis was devastating. Townsend's four-year-old daughter, Neva's, headaches and difficulty keeping up on the playground were caused by a brain tumor. The risks of removing it were great, but the risks of leaving the growth in her brain were greater. Townsend recounts the challenging years that followed through the lens of his training as a scientist in this moving tribute to curiosity, acceptance, and approaching the unknown. As Neva slowly recovered from the trauma of her surgery, her family was rocked by another diagnosis: Townsend's wife, Diana, also had a brain tumor. Townsend found solace in understanding the promise and limitations of science as he navigated the unthinkable. He recounts his research trips to Brazil and Costa Rica, searching for clues to slow deforestation, and reflects on discoveries of the larger scientific community relevant to the agonizing post-diagnosis journey his family endured. Amid the grief and uncertainty, Townsend convincingly demonstrates that science, at its core, means putting ego aside to reach beyond ourselves. A scientific mindset is, ultimately, an act of love.

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