{"product_id":"heaven-is-a-place-on-earth-book-adrian-shirk-9781640093300","title":"Heaven Is a Place on Earth","description":"\u003cb\u003e\u003cb\u003eAn exploration of American ideas of utopia through the lens of one millennial's quest to live a more communal life under late-stage capitalism\u003c\/b\u003e\u003c\/b\u003e \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eTold in a series of essays that balance memoir with fieldwork, \u003ci\u003eHeaven Is a Place on Earth\u003c\/i\u003e is an idiosyncratic study of American utopian experiments--from the Shakers to the radical faerie communes of Short Mountain to the Bronx rebuilding movement--through the lens of one woman's quest to create a more communal life in a time of unending economic and social precarity. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eWhen Adrian Shirk's father-in-law has a stroke and loses his ability to speak and walk, she and her husband--both adjuncts in their midtwenties--become his primary caretakers. The stress of these new responsibilities, coupled with navigating America's broken health-care system and ordinary twenty-first-century financial insecurity, propels Shirk into an odyssey through the history and present of American utopian experiments in the hope that they might offer a way forward. \u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eAlong the way, Shirk seeks solace in her own community of friends, artists, and theologians. They try to imagine a different kind of life, examining what might be replicable within the histories of utopia-making, and what might be doomed. Rather than no place, Shirk reframes utopia as something that, according to the laws of capital and conquest, shouldn't be able to exist--but does anyway, if only for a moment.","brand":"WoB","offers":[{"title":"US \/ GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":49565569941777,"sku":"CIN1640093303G","price":8.05,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false},{"title":"US \/ VERY_GOOD \/ SBYB","offer_id":51417644957969,"sku":"CIN1640093303VG","price":4.08,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0784\/4072\/6801\/files\/1640093303.jpg?v=1751089715","url":"https:\/\/www.worldofbooks.com\/products\/heaven-is-a-place-on-earth-book-adrian-shirk-9781640093300","provider":"World of Books ","version":"1.0","type":"link"}