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HEART OF THE LAND

ESSAYS ON LAST GREAT PLACES

Celebrations of exceptional places from a host of writers whose prose generally is as lovely as the lands they praise. Editors Barbato and Weinerman are on the staff of the Nature Conservancy, a group that protects special territory by simply going out and buying it for their organization. They managed to corral 30 talented writers to sing the glories of 30 ``last great places'' designated by the conservancy. A sampling of the plums includes David James Duncan on Nevada's Pyramid Lake (``Lake of the Stone Mother''); as well as exploring the lake's reputation as a particularly good fishery for Lahontan cutthroat trout, Duncan happily immerses himself in the intricacies and mysteries of native place names and chronicles the restoration of critical wetlands. Jim Harrison rambles and tumbles through New Mexico's colossal Gray Ranch in ``The Beginner's Mind,'' his thoughts on chaos and fungoid tribalism, hip pain and tendinitis, tortillas and a glass of Bordeaux round the campfire, wolves and midday naps blending together to form a delicious stew. Louise Erdrich's ``Big Grass'' savors the eternal pleasures of bluestem and other original prairie grasses, finding in them her sanctuary and inspiration; even her daughters' hair has ``a scent as undefinable as grass—made up of mood and weather, of curiosity and water.'' Not all of the essays are this good: Rick Bass persists with his artful rube pose in ``On Willow Creek,'' where everyone plays dominoes and drinks iced tea, and little fish listen to the tilt of the planet. But why quibble over a few duds when there are top-notch efforts from Paul Theroux, Peter Matthiessen, and Barbara Kingsolver to choose from? The collection's tone reflects Gary Snyder's take on place: ``If you know what is taught by plants and weather, you are in on the gossip and can truly feel at home.''

Pub Date: Feb. 21, 1995

ISBN: 0-679-43508-5

Page Count: 320

Publisher: Pantheon

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 1994

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A FIRE STORY

Drawings, words, and a few photos combine to convey the depth of a tragedy that would leave most people dumbstruck.

A new life and book arise from the ashes of a devastating California wildfire.

These days, it seems the fires will never end. They wreaked destruction over central California in the latter months of 2018, dominating headlines for weeks, barely a year after Fies (Whatever Happened to the World of Tomorrow?, 2009) lost nearly everything to the fires that raged through Northern California. The result is a vividly journalistic graphic narrative of resilience in the face of tragedy, an account of recent history that seems timely as ever. “A two-story house full of our lives was a two-foot heap of dead smoking ash,” writes the author about his first return to survey the damage. The matter-of-fact tone of the reportage makes some of the flights of creative imagination seem more extraordinary—particularly a nihilistic, two-page centerpiece of a psychological solar system in which “the fire is our black hole,” and “some veer too near and are drawn into despair, depression, divorce, even suicide,” while “others are gravitationally flung entirely out of our solar system to other cities or states, and never seen again.” Yet the stories that dominate the narrative are those of the survivors, who were part of the community and would be part of whatever community would be built to take its place across the charred landscape. Interspersed with the author’s own account are those from others, many retirees, some suffering from physical or mental afflictions. Each is rendered in a couple pages of text except one from a fellow cartoonist, who draws his own. The project began with an online comic when Fies did the only thing he could as his life was reduced to ash and rubble. More than 3 million readers saw it; this expanded version will hopefully extend its reach.

Drawings, words, and a few photos combine to convey the depth of a tragedy that would leave most people dumbstruck.

Pub Date: March 5, 2019

ISBN: 978-1-4197-3585-1

Page Count: 160

Publisher: Abrams ComicArts

Review Posted Online: Nov. 25, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 15, 2018

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H IS FOR HAWK

Whether you call this a personal story or nature writing, it’s poignant, thoughtful and moving—and likely to become a...

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Our Verdict

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  • Kirkus Reviews'
    Best Books Of 2015


  • Kirkus Prize
  • Kirkus Prize
    finalist


  • New York Times Bestseller


  • National Book Critics Circle Finalist

An inspired, beautiful and absorbing account of a woman battling grief—with a goshawk.

Following the sudden death of her father, Macdonald (History and Philosophy/Cambridge Univ.; Falcon, 2006, etc.) tried staving off deep depression with a unique form of personal therapy: the purchase and training of an English goshawk, which she named Mabel. Although a trained falconer, the author chose a raptor both unfamiliar and unpredictable, a creature of mad confidence that became a means of working against madness. “The hawk was everything I wanted to be: solitary, self-possessed, free from grief, and numb to the hurts of human life,” she writes. As a devotee of birds of prey since girlhood, Macdonald knew the legends and the literature, particularly the cautionary example of The Once and Future King author T.H. White, whose 1951 book The Goshawk details his own painful battle to master his title subject. Macdonald dramatically parallels her own story with White’s, achieving a remarkable imaginative sympathy with the writer, a lonely, tormented homosexual fighting his own sadomasochistic demons. Even as she was learning from White’s mistakes, she found herself very much in his shoes, watching her life fall apart as the painfully slow bonding process with Mabel took over. Just how much do animals and humans have in common? The more Macdonald got to know her, the more Mabel confounded her notions about what the species was supposed to represent. Is a hawk a symbol of might or independence, or is that just our attempt to remake the animal world in our own image? Writing with breathless urgency that only rarely skirts the melodramatic, Macdonald broadens her scope well beyond herself to focus on the antagonism between people and the environment.

Whether you call this a personal story or nature writing, it’s poignant, thoughtful and moving—and likely to become a classic in either genre.

Pub Date: March 3, 2015

ISBN: 978-0802123411

Page Count: 288

Publisher: Grove

Review Posted Online: Nov. 3, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Nov. 15, 2014

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