* !Whittailnation_hres by Pete Bodo*
I've hijacked the Deuce Club post today to give Jackie-Oh a well-earned break, and because it would be just too much to ask that delightful girl from Chicago to write about my new book, Whitetail Nation (Houghton-Mifflin Harcourt, just published).
I don't know how many of you in the TWibe have even the slightest interest in Whitetail deer or the deer-hunting subculture (although "culture" might a better word, given the popularity and rich history of deer hunting), but maybe you know someone who does, or have a desire to understand how so many people can cling to a pastime that, for all its proven value (from providing organic, free-range, protein-rich lean meat to creating a profound intimacy with the natural world) is viewed by many as, well, barbaric.
I, for better or worse, live a wonderfully guilt-free life, not because it's an unexamined one but rather the opposite. I've pretty much figured out how I feel about most of the big issues, and I'm content to live the way I wish, let the chips fall where they may. Hunting is a big part of my life, and one of my aims in Whitetail Nation is to explain why. But in the big picture, the book isn't a polemic. Basically I try to reveal why men and women still hunt, and share the experiences that compel me, and them, to keep doing it. I try to achieve this by telling the story a year spent in the pursuit of a great big buck. So it's a "quest" book, as well as a travelogue of sorts One of the nicest things anyone said about the book is that it reminded her of Bill Bryson book, A Walk in the Woods. Personally, I try not to look at it that way because that bar is set awfully high.
Whitetail Nation isn't a scientific book, although I've done a fair amount of research on deer biology and behavior, a good deal of it in the field. It isn't a work of sociology, although i write quite a bit about why American people in particular have a flourishing, egalitarian, deeply-rooted acceptance of and passion for hunting. The book isn't a history, either, although I was intrigued by the way camoflouge clothing has evolved, as well as stories like that of Ishi, the last "wild" Indian who inadvertently became the progenitor of bowhunting. I tried to avoid excessive philosophy, although the portal through which the allure and value of hunting is best understood was best explained by a philosopher - the renowned Spanish thinker and hunter, Jose Ortega y Gasset. He summed it all up when he said, "I don't hunt to have killed. I kill to have hunted." I did hope to amusing. . .
Oddly enough, I've witnessed a basic and broad shift of attitude about hunting in recent years, undoubtedly driven partly by the general, realistic fear many have that on any given night, a deer is apt fly through the windshield of his or her brand-new luxury sedan. But a greater consicousness of where our food comes from and how it is grown and delivered (re. Michael Pollans wildly popular recent book, The Omnivore's Dilemma) has also played a big part in changing hearts and minds. Anecdotally, I find that people I meet tend more and more to be interested in and even fascinated by the idea of hunting, and the more the discussion is about food, the more open-minded they're apt to be.
When I get into a conversation with someone who's apalled by the idea of hunting, I basically tell them that if they needed to feed a hungry family and had no other recourse, they would be out there in the woods, rock or club in hand. No doubt about. They're spared having to do that by the conveniences of modern, industrial society, but they also pay a hidden price in the form of a greatly reduced, almost entirely abstract understanding of nature. It takes a lot more work to go kill a deer than to buy a slab of beef at the supermarket, and you can't help but learn certain things doing it. The rewards are far greater and more lasting to me than anything I'm apt to discover or experience in the check-out line at the supermarket, or even when I'm being waited on hand and foot by a French-speaker in a four-star restaurant.
Anyway, if you or anyone you know is at all interested in that most beautiful of all creatures, the Whitetail deer, or wonder why people hunt despite the moral fervor of animal rights advocates and our general, cultural aversion to killing and death (unless it's others trafficking in those natural events on our behalf, either in the abbatoir or on the battlefield), you might find the book of some use. I'm very happy with how it turned out, right down to Glenn Wolff's exquisite line drawings. Glenn illustrated many of the Outdoors columns I wrote for the New York Times, and it was great to work with him again.
