The Beloved Republic by Steven Harvey
Winner of the Wandering Aengus Book Award in Nonfiction
What is The Beloved Republic?
E. M. Forster, who coined the phrase, called it a “an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate, and the plucky.” They are “sensitive for others as well as for themselves, they are considerate without being fussy, their pluck is not swankiness but the power to endure, and they can take a joke.” Pitted against authoritarianism, The Beloved Republic is the peaceful and fragile confederacy of kind, benevolent, and creative people in a world of tyrants, thugs, and loud-mouthed bullies. Steven Harvey’s fourth collection of personal essays, taking Forster’s phrase for its title, can be read as dispatches from that beleaguered land. Two of the essays were chosen for The Best American Essays series and the collection as a whole won the Wandering Aengus Press Nonfiction Award. Here—in a country beset by lies and under threat of authoritarianism, and insurrection—politics and the human spirit collide.
Steven Harvey is a consummately skillful writer, as he demonstrates in each of these searching, often wrenching essays, whose subjects range from racial divides to his mother’s suicide, from mountain music to the mystery of consciousness. These pages reveal the truth of his claim that an author’s voice “can bring the solace of comradery to a reader.” We are not alone, he assures us, in our fear, bewilderment, or wonder.
—Scott Russell Sanders, author of The Way of Imagination
This book, perfect for its time, puzzles over questions about where we fit in the upheaval all around us, and does not give up on the possibility of a more luminous humanity. Harvey’s mind and heart work in tandem in these thoughtfully emotional essays. If only those in our halls of power had half this much intelligence and empathy!
—Sue William Silverman, author, How to Survive Death and Other Inconveniences
Steven Harvey’s The Beloved Republic is a masterful collection of essays, provocative, always engaging, a compelling journey from page to page. Yes, our beloved republic is under siege, but these thoughtful “dispatches” ultimately offer hope and beauty.
—Dinty W. Moore, author of Between Panic & Desire
This is a book to treasure, to return to for reflection and guidance, and to give away: to remind all citizens of The Beloved Republic of the ties that anchor us together.
—Sonya Huber, author of Supremely Tiny Acts: A Memoir of a Day
Welcome, intimates. Open your palms to cradle this book inside which resides “the solace of
comradery.”
—Amy Wright, author of Paper Concert
Harvey is a decent, kind man from whom time hasn’t stripped the will to hope. He believes the most effective weapon the republic wields is “creativity,” the determination of good people, as E. M. Forster put it, to create and discover, in Harvey’s slight emendation, the commitment of ordinary people to helping others…Harvey’s book is a miscellany, and other essays mitigate shadowy thoughts about our bruised nation. He describes a fiddler whose music, like the gospel song “I Saw the Light,” brightens mood and expels darkness and night. He writes about the comfort of his enclosed office, his battered Royal typewriter, and the Book of Knowledge he read as a child. He celebrates the shaping power of poetry and mentions a razor blade presented to him by a graduating student. For years, the student cut herself with the razor but stopped after studying with Harvey at Young Harris. College. He praises the transforming power of touch…Harvey’s essays animate the mind. Reading them awakens memories and enriches passing. He quotes a student who uses a mountain phrase: “kindly dark.” Probably the phrase is a colloquial version of “kind of dark.” Yet, as Harvey examines the words, he encourages readers to pause, to stop reading and, sitting silently, wonder about the kindly and, indeed, the unkindly darks of life.
—Sam Pickering, review in The Missouri Review, author of The Gate in the Garden Wall and Terrible Sanity
E. M. Forster, who coined the phrase, called it a “an aristocracy of the sensitive, the considerate, and the plucky.” They are “sensitive for others as well as for themselves, they are considerate without being fussy, their pluck is not swankiness but the power to endure, and they can take a joke.” Pitted against authoritarianism, The Beloved Republic is the peaceful and fragile confederacy of kind, benevolent, and creative people in a world of tyrants, thugs, and loud-mouthed bullies. Steven Harvey’s fourth collection of personal essays, taking Forster’s phrase for its title, can be read as dispatches from that beleaguered land. Two of the essays were chosen for The Best American Essays series and the collection as a whole won the Wandering Aengus Press Nonfiction Award. Here—in a country beset by lies and under threat of authoritarianism, and insurrection—politics and the human spirit collide.
Steven Harvey is a consummately skillful writer, as he demonstrates in each of these searching, often wrenching essays, whose subjects range from racial divides to his mother’s suicide, from mountain music to the mystery of consciousness. These pages reveal the truth of his claim that an author’s voice “can bring the solace of comradery to a reader.” We are not alone, he assures us, in our fear, bewilderment, or wonder.
—Scott Russell Sanders, author of The Way of Imagination
This book, perfect for its time, puzzles over questions about where we fit in the upheaval all around us, and does not give up on the possibility of a more luminous humanity. Harvey’s mind and heart work in tandem in these thoughtfully emotional essays. If only those in our halls of power had half this much intelligence and empathy!
—Sue William Silverman, author, How to Survive Death and Other Inconveniences
Steven Harvey’s The Beloved Republic is a masterful collection of essays, provocative, always engaging, a compelling journey from page to page. Yes, our beloved republic is under siege, but these thoughtful “dispatches” ultimately offer hope and beauty.
—Dinty W. Moore, author of Between Panic & Desire
This is a book to treasure, to return to for reflection and guidance, and to give away: to remind all citizens of The Beloved Republic of the ties that anchor us together.
—Sonya Huber, author of Supremely Tiny Acts: A Memoir of a Day
Welcome, intimates. Open your palms to cradle this book inside which resides “the solace of
comradery.”
—Amy Wright, author of Paper Concert
Harvey is a decent, kind man from whom time hasn’t stripped the will to hope. He believes the most effective weapon the republic wields is “creativity,” the determination of good people, as E. M. Forster put it, to create and discover, in Harvey’s slight emendation, the commitment of ordinary people to helping others…Harvey’s book is a miscellany, and other essays mitigate shadowy thoughts about our bruised nation. He describes a fiddler whose music, like the gospel song “I Saw the Light,” brightens mood and expels darkness and night. He writes about the comfort of his enclosed office, his battered Royal typewriter, and the Book of Knowledge he read as a child. He celebrates the shaping power of poetry and mentions a razor blade presented to him by a graduating student. For years, the student cut herself with the razor but stopped after studying with Harvey at Young Harris. College. He praises the transforming power of touch…Harvey’s essays animate the mind. Reading them awakens memories and enriches passing. He quotes a student who uses a mountain phrase: “kindly dark.” Probably the phrase is a colloquial version of “kind of dark.” Yet, as Harvey examines the words, he encourages readers to pause, to stop reading and, sitting silently, wonder about the kindly and, indeed, the unkindly darks of life.
—Sam Pickering, review in The Missouri Review, author of The Gate in the Garden Wall and Terrible Sanity
Steven Harvey is the author of a book-length essay, Folly Beach, a memoir, The Book of Knowledge and Wonder and three collections of personal essays: A Geometry of Lilies, Lost in Translation, and Bound for Shady Grove. He is also a Contributing Editor at River Teeth magazine and the creator of The Humble Essayist website. Two of his essays have been selected for The Best American Essays series: “The Book of Knowledge” in 2013 and “The Other Steve Harvey” in 2018. Fourteen of his essays have been listed as notable by that series as well.