Worth A Read Yes
Length 336
Quick Review Green Banks, West Virginia is the heart of a zone with bans on all devices emitting radio frequencies so astronomers can look past the stars. The quiet zone keeps away WiFi and technology, but creates an atmosphere perfect for less than wholesome individuals.
Stephen Kurczy does not own a cell phone (or at least he didn’t as of the writing of this book). It started out of convenience and evolved into a protest against society. He sought out Green Banks, a place where he was not the only one without technology, and his time there sparked the inspiration for The Quiet Zone. Moving into the town, hearing the stories of the natives and the transplants, learning about the observatory, he learned the area offered a darker story than the one he set out to tell.
Pocahontas County is home to the National Radio Quiet Zone because of the Green Banks Telescope, the world’s largest fully steerable radio telescope, which is under the control of the Green Banks Observatory but was previously operated by the National Radio Astronomy Observatory (NRAO) until late 2016. This quiet zone is enforced by radio policemen and “Operating any electrical equipment within ten miles of here was illegal if it caused interference to the telescope.” There are other quiet zones in the world, they are largely uninhabited; though Pocahontas County is sparsely populated, it is very much lived in. Kurczy was intrigued by the space like many other media outlets around the world. Instead of breezing through and interviewing a handful of people, he made a space in his life for the place and the people. Taking the time to get to know the nuance, the hypocrisy, the secrets, the community, the history, the science, and more. What he found led The Quiet Zone in a different direction because he took the time, asked questions, and did what others had not: “Had [Sanjay] Gupta and [Katie] Couric so much as searched for a WiFi signal using their smartphones, they might have started to see a messier portrait of the Quiet Zone.”
Green Banks is in the Appalachians; a notoriously difficult area to navigate and inhabited by people who are, at best, wary of outsiders. Over the years, people, from hippies to the electromagnetic hypersensitives to neo-Nazis and everything in between have gravitated to the area for their own reasons. Secluded geography and a lack of technology make it a paradise for those wanting to live off the grid or avoid surveillance, “The physical and bureaucratic barriers isolated an already remote area.” With a heavy neo-Nazi population and a National Alliance base, Kurczy arrived with one story in mind but, so often is the case, realized there was a more interesting story to tell.
The Quiet Zone is well written and intriguing because he captures the essence of a place that exists outside the norm of modern society. He asks the question: is an unconnected life truly idyllic? The portrait of Green Banks is wonderful in all its eccentricities and hypocrisy. No place is as simple as the world believes it to be, and that couldn’t be more true than in Green Banks. Kurczy embraces his quest to find the heart of Green Banks and doesn’t shy away from stomach curdling stories and situations, including tours of the National Alliance’s headquarters, animal cruelty, terrorist plots, unsolved murders, and more.
I read this book in between hikes into the Grand Canyon. I was experiencing my own quiet zone as I was living without WiFi, cell phone service, internet, and even electricity as I was camping. I enjoyed it, but there were definitely some bits that were hard to read. In Kurczy’s place, I don’t know if I would have been able to do what he did. I highly recommend The Quiet Zone to all those who are piqued by a life without technology.
Memorable Quotes
“I felt that I’d stumbled into a pivotal place in the world and, perhaps, in the history of humanity: an area endangered not by climate change or gentrification but by the Fitbit on your wrist, the iPhone in your hand, the anti-collision sensor in your car, the human desire to have what everybody else has.”
“Then I started coming back with stories of electro-allergies and illicit WiFi hotspots, secret government hideouts and neo-Nazi terror plots. The place was less and less Walden and more and more weird.”
bisous un обьятий,
RaeAnna
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Title: The Quiet Zone; Unraveling the Mystery of a Town Suspended in Silence
Author: Stephen Kurczy
Publisher: Dey Street
Copyright: 2021
ISBN: 9780062945495
