In this riveting account of an area of Appalachia known as the Quiet Zone where cell phones and
WiFi are banned journalist Stephen Kurczy explores the pervasive role of technology in our
lives and the innate human need for quiet. Captures the complex beauty of a disconnected way of
life. -The Nation With a new afterword to the paperback edition Deep 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.
