The Quiet Zone

Captivating. —Kirkus | Fascinating | deeply reported | and slightly eerie. —BookPage (Starred Review) | The Quiet Zone will live on in your memory. —Bill McKibbenA stunning portrait of an Appalachian community | the people who call it home | and the enduring human quest for quietDeep in the Appalachian Mountains lies the last truly quiet town in America. Green Bank | West Virginia | is a place at once futuristic and old-fashioned: It’s home to the Green Bank Observatory | where astronomers search the depths of the universe using the latest technology | while schoolchildren go without WiFi or iPads. With a ban on all devices emanating radio frequencies that might interfere with the observatory’s telescopes | Quiet Zone residents live a life free from constant digital connectivity. But a community that on the surface seems idyllic is a place of contradictions | where the provincial meets the seemingly supernatural and quiet can serve as a cover for something darker.Stephen Kurczy embedded in Green Bank | making the residents of this small Appalachian village his neighbors. He shopped at the town’s general store | attended church services | went target shooting with a seven-year-old | square-danced with the locals | sampled the local moonshine. In The Quiet Zone | he introduces us to an unforgettable cast of characters. There is a tech buster patrolling the area for illegal radio waves; “electrosensitives” who claim that WiFi is deadly; a sheriff’s department with a string of unsolved murder cases dating back decades; a camp of neo-Nazis plotting their resurgence from a nearby mountain hollow. Amongst them all are the ordinary citizens seeking a simpler way of living. Kurczy asks: Is a less connected life desirable? Is it even possible?The Quiet Zone is a remarkable work of investigative journalism—at once a stirring ode to place | a tautly-wound tale of mystery | and a clarion call to reexamine the role technology plays in our lives.