" I need a flood in my soul, to carry off all the old drift and the flimsy habits that have extended down to the water's edge."―Harlan Hubbard, Journals Writer, artist, and sustainability pioneer Harlan Hubbard (1900–1988) lived a quiet, unassuming life, and yet he is thoroughly embedded in Kentucky's historical memory. While some may know of Hubbard's shantyboat sojourn on the Ohio and Mississippi Rivers with his wife, Anna, or of Payne Hollow, their hand-built homestead, few know the full story. After four decades of transformation, Hubbard emerged in middle age as the rightful heir to the Transcendentalist ethos, ready to envision a unique existence of simplicity and wild beauty akin to that of the revered Henry David Thoreau. In this comprehensive biography, Jessica K. Whitehead reveals why Hubbard is beloved by his fellow Kentuckians and has been an inspiration to generations of readers interested in art, adventure, and environmentalism. Driftwood delves into Hubbard's family background, education, and relationships, and into his theories on art, writing, music, and philosophy. Using journals, letters, paintings, manuscripts, and sketches, Whitehead pieces together the distinct phases of Hubbard's life, providing new insights into his character and legacy. By examining his perspectives on creativity and responsible living, Whitehead connects the early Hubbard, who grappled with his identity and yearned for travel, with the confident and intentional Hubbard of Payne Hollow. Driftwood: The Life of Harlan Hubbard is a complex portrait of a person who deserves a place alongside other iconic American thinkers and artists in the nation's broad cultural history. It offers a vivid depiction of Hubbard, the traces he left behind, and his template for sustainability in our modern ecological landscape. "Jessica K. Whitehead has done more than brick-and-mortar work to reconstruct the forces and personalities that shaped the life of a unique Kentuckian. She has done much more, tracing the quest of Kentucky's Thoreau for a life lived close to the bone in the natural world, a life that combines simple living with genuine creativity. The book becomes a reflection on the restlessness of the American spirit and asks what it means to pursue individual happiness free of the mania of owning things and the amassing of wealth that too single-mindedly has answered for the American dream. In a feat of research and revelation that avoids hagiography, Whitehead has made this icon fully human, examining the mythos of a legendary Kentuckian to reveal the essential Hubbard, a man we would have to invent if he had not existed."―Richard Taylor, former Kentucky Poet Laureate and author of Elkhorn: Evolution of a Kentucky Landscape "An epic story of our conflictive American nature and the many currents that finally deposited into place one of our most authentic artists and writers."―Morris A. Grubbs, editor of Conversations with Wendell Berry "Place Harlan Hubbard in the line of American rebel mystics―from Everett Ruess to Scott and Helen Nearing to Daniel Suelo―who marched away from the casino economy toward a life woven with nature's risks and ecstasies. Driftwood gives him the rich and wise consideration he has long deserved."―Mark Sundeen, author of Delusions and Grandeur and The Unsettlers "Whitehead's Driftwood is a vantage point from which we may survey not only the life of Hubbard, its component circumstance, coincidence, and experience, but also the topography of symbol and meaning that Hubbard explored. The hills, hollers, creeks, and rivers of our Bluegrass are revived and sustained by Hubbard's work and Whitehead's telling of it. Hubbard is hierophant of the wild and growing world, exemplifying quiet stewardship, gentle cooperation, and an ability to express the movement of the animate wilderness while communicating our place within it. Whitehead has traced the long shadow cast by Hubbard so that we may walk in the shade with understanding, surefooted and clear-eyed in the edenic garden that is our state."―Zack Poehlein, co-author of Kentucky Deceased and the zine Derby City Midnight "Jessica Whitehead's Driftwood: The Life of Harlan Hubbard is one of the most brilliantly written books that I have ever had the good fortune to read. Her ability to weave history into a riveting and timeless story of a Northern Kentucky artist will render this book the definitive biography of Harlan Hubbard. She paints a vivid picture of Harlan and Anna, resurrecting memories of this talented and countercultural couple whom I and so many others were honored to know."―Paul A. Tenkotte, author of A Brief History of Northern Kentucky " Driftwood is a wonder, much like the Hubbard's themselves. Jessica K. Whitehead brings Anna and Harlan Hubbard to life with insight, creativity, and skill. For those who are already admirers of the Hubbards this book will be a treasure. For those just becoming aware of them, Dri