Twomey Series: Biography as Pilgrimage: On the Trail of Peter Matthiessen

For our final Twomey Series Lecture of 2025, Lance Richardson discusses his eight-year undertaking — including a two-hundred mile trek in the Himalayas of Nepal — to write a biography of the late Sagaponack resident Peter Matthiessen, novelist, naturalist, and Zen roshi, whose trailblazing work championed Native American rights and helped usher in the modern environmental movement. Matthiessen’s many books include travel classic The Snow Leopard, and also Men’s Lives, a moving account of the lives and struggles of East End Bonackers.

Lance Richardson’s new book, True Nature: The Pilgrimage of Peter Matthiessen, is out October 14, 2025, from Pantheon Books, and will be available for purchase at the event. His previous book, House of Nutter: The Rebel Tailor of Savile Row, was a New York Times Editors’ Choice and named one of the notable titles of 2018 by The Sunday Times, The Mail on Sunday, Esquire, and the American Library Association. He has been awarded numerous fellowships, including a year-long residency at the Cullman Center for Scholars and Writers, at the New York Public Library. He teaches in the MFA in Writing program at Bennington College, Vermont.

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