Both a briskly guided tour of a fading industry and a vibrant example of self-discovery.
A successful art enthusiast finds his true calling in the quest for dinosaur remains.
At age 50, author and art columnist Polsky (I Sold Andy Warhol (Too Soon), 2009, etc.) took a good look at his extensive yet stagnant 25-year career as an art dealer and decided to dive into his true life’s passion of dinosaur exploration. To realize his goal of unearthing the skeletal remains of a Tyrannosaurus rex, the author enlisted the aid of seasoned paleontologist Henry Galiano, who cautioned him about the competitiveness of the dinosaur-hunting community. Galiano officially navigated Polsky through his first trade convention, and the author met with commercial fossil dealer Mike Triebold, “fossil king” Bob Detrich and Maurice Williams, the owner of the land where the legendary “Sue” T-rex skeleton was excavated in 1990. When Galiano and fellow paleontologist Peter Larson declined to participate in his frenzied endeavor, Polsky was crestfallen, especially when his luck (and time) ran out while scraping across Williams’ hallowed property in the South Dakota badlands. Exasperated yet undeterred, the author regrouped with an overconfident Detrich to assemble a ragtag party of die-hard fossil hunters (“boneheads”), including a pair of bickering fraternal twin brothers and rancher Bucky Derflinger, who became the youngest person to discover (and sell) a T. rex. Polsky takes distinct delight in writing about the history of paleontology, pricey dinosaur casts, a rumored T. rex “curse” and the general frustration felt when confronted with a declining seller’s market due to the saturation of online marketplaces. Whether successful or not, the author’s fortitude remains palpable. He writes with earnest and lighthearted exuberance, expressing an obvious love of the hunt, even during the most hopeless moments of his spirited adventure.
Both a briskly guided tour of a fading industry and a vibrant example of self-discovery.Pub Date: April 15, 2011
ISBN: 978-1-57178-253-3
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Council Oak
Review Posted Online: April 4, 2011
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2011
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
Unsentimental nature writing that sheds as much light on humans as on eels.
An account of the mysterious life of eels that also serves as a meditation on consciousness, faith, time, light and darkness, and life and death.
In addition to an intriguing natural history, Swedish journalist Svensson includes a highly personal account of his relationship with his father. The author alternates eel-focused chapters with those about his father, a man obsessed with fishing for this elusive creature. “I can’t recall us ever talking about anything other than eels and how to best catch them, down there by the stream,” he writes. “I can’t remember us speaking at all….Because we were in…a place whose nature was best enjoyed in silence.” Throughout, Svensson, whose beat is not biology but art and culture, fills his account with people: Aristotle, who thought eels emerged live from mud, “like a slithering, enigmatic miracle”; Freud, who as a teenage biologist spent months in Trieste, Italy, peering through a microscope searching vainly for eel testes; Johannes Schmidt, who for two decades tracked thousands of eels, looking for their breeding grounds. After recounting the details of the eel life cycle, the author turns to the eel in literature—e.g., in the Bible, Rachel Carson’s Under the Sea Wind, and Günter Grass’ The Tin Drum—and history. He notes that the Puritans would likely not have survived without eels, and he explores Sweden’s “eel coast” (what it once was and how it has changed), how eel fishing became embroiled in the Northern Irish conflict, and the importance of eel fishing to the Basque separatist movement. The apparent return to life of a dead eel leads Svensson to a consideration of faith and the inherent message of miracles. He warns that if we are to save this fascinating creature from extinction, we must continue to study it. His book is a highly readable place to begin learning.
Unsentimental nature writing that sheds as much light on humans as on eels.Pub Date: May 5, 2020
ISBN: 978-0-06-296881-4
Page Count: 256
Publisher: Ecco/HarperCollins
Review Posted Online: Feb. 29, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 15, 2020
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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