{"id":6617,"date":"2025-10-14T18:20:51","date_gmt":"2025-10-14T21:20:51","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/sacatar.org\/?p=6617"},"modified":"2025-10-14T18:20:52","modified_gmt":"2025-10-14T21:20:52","slug":"michael-lowenthals-place-envy-a-deeply-personal-exploration-of-belonging","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/sacatar.org\/en\/michael-lowenthals-place-envy-a-deeply-personal-exploration-of-belonging\/","title":{"rendered":"Michael Lowenthal\u2019s Place Envy: A Deeply Personal Exploration of Belonging"},"content":{"rendered":"\n

Michael Lowenthal (USA \/ Literature \/ Sacatar Fellow 2008 & 2022) announced that his new book, Place Envy: Essays in Search of Orientation<\/a><\/strong><\/em>, will be published on February 9.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

After five works of fiction, this marks Lowenthal\u2019s first venture into the realm of real stories. Described as a memoir-in-essays\u2014or a quest-in-essays\u2014the book chronicles his search for orientation and belonging as an agnostic Jew, a queer traveler and lover, and a writer exploring the boundaries between truth and invention.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

In the long essays that frame the book, Lowenthal recounts a yearning for \u201cqueeritage,\u201d or queer heritage, which inspired an obsession with an uncle who died at Bergen-Belsen and later led to a surprising discovery in his grandmother\u2019s German hometown. The essays in the book\u2019s middle explore other journeys of dislocation and relocation: living with a Pennsylvania Amish family; accompanying blind gay men on a Mexican cruise; playing jazz with Sun Ra, the Afrofuturist who claimed to hail from Saturn; and pursuing a clarifying love affair in Brazil. Other travels take him to Shanghai and a remote Scottish island.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Place Envy<\/em> is Michael Lowenthal\u2019s most personal book to date, and he has expressed both pride and a touch of nervousness in releasing it into the world.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Readers may also pre-order the book through Bookshop.org, Amazon.com, Barnes & Noble, or their favorite independent bookstore.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

Lowenthal will launch Place Envy<\/em> with a reading at Porter Square Books in Cambridge, with additional events planned in Boston and other cities. Further details will be announced soon.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

He welcomes invitations to speak with university classes, organizations, or book groups, and appreciates any leads for interviews, podcasts, or other opportunities to share his work more widely.<\/p>\n\n\n\n

https:\/\/michaellowenthal.com<\/strong><\/a><\/p>\n\n\n\n

<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"

Michael Lowenthal (USA \/ Literature \/ Sacatar Fellow 2008 & 2022) announced that his new book, Place Envy: Essays in […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":3,"featured_media":6624,"comment_status":"closed","ping_status":"closed","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"site-sidebar-layout":"default","site-content-layout":"","ast-site-content-layout":"default","site-content-style":"default","site-sidebar-style":"default","ast-global-header-display":"","ast-banner-title-visibility":"","ast-main-header-display":"","ast-hfb-above-header-display":"","ast-hfb-below-header-display":"","ast-hfb-mobile-header-display":"","site-post-title":"","ast-breadcrumbs-content":"","ast-featured-img":"","footer-sml-layout":"","ast-disable-related-posts":"","theme-transparent-header-meta":"","adv-header-id-meta":"","stick-header-meta":"","header-above-stick-meta":"","header-main-stick-meta":"","header-below-stick-meta":"","astra-migrate-meta-layouts":"default","ast-page-background-enabled":"default","ast-page-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-4)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"ast-content-background-meta":{"desktop":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"tablet":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""},"mobile":{"background-color":"var(--ast-global-color-5)","background-image":"","background-repeat":"repeat","background-position":"center center","background-size":"auto","background-attachment":"scroll","background-type":"","background-media":"","overlay-type":"","overlay-color":"","overlay-opacity":"","overlay-gradient":""}},"footnotes":""},"categories":[31],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-6617","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-fellows-achievements"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/sacatar.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6617","targetHints":{"allow":["GET"]}}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/sacatar.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/sacatar.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"author":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sacatar.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/users\/3"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sacatar.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/comments?post=6617"}],"version-history":[{"count":1,"href":"https:\/\/sacatar.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6617\/revisions"}],"predecessor-version":[{"id":6626,"href":"https:\/\/sacatar.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/posts\/6617\/revisions\/6626"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sacatar.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media\/6624"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/sacatar.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/media?parent=6617"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sacatar.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/categories?post=6617"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/sacatar.org\/en\/wp-json\/wp\/v2\/tags?post=6617"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}