The Red Hourglass: Lives of the Predators - Hardcover

Grice, Gordon

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0385318871 ISBN 13: 9780385318877

Publisher: Delacorte Pubns Inc, 1998

Synopsis

Presents a close-up look at nature's most deadly predators, including black widow spiders, rattlesnakes, and tarantulas--natural-born killers, who, for reasons unknown, have been bestowed with the ability to kill with ease.

About this title

Review:

The Red Hourglass creeps and crawls with seven essays that follow the author's fascination with spiders, insects, snakes--even wild pigs. Its title, suggesting the irony of lethal beauty, provides a hint of the miraculous nature writing contained within; Grice transforms even the most horrific events of the natural world into poetry. Here's a pet praying mantis during feeding time: "The moth flapped its wings into a buzzing blur every few seconds while the mantid unhurriedly ate it, starting from the head. The pruning-shear mouth parts worked away, biting out chunks of moth and lapping the juices. The moth's scales, which had broken into particles of dust when they smeared my hand, looked like little brown feathers when they were whole, and they drifted down in a steady snow." The writing is quirky, lyrical, and intensely personal. Grice is not just an observer of nature; he gleefully participates in the strange and wonderful lives of mostly small, predatory animals, and most readers will simultaneously squirm and delight in his unusual, ground-level perspective. Then again, some readers may be reduced to quivering terror. If you suffer from a fear of the little beasts roaming the earth, perhaps Grice's exploration of the predator-prey relationship might prove too frightening and abhorrent. --Amazon.com

Review:

"Gordon Grice is one hell of a writer. I was originally disturbed by some of the killing he depicts, but his descriptions are so compelling that I had to read on. I'm glad I did."
--Jeffrey Masson, author of When Elephants Weep and Dogs Never Lie About Love

"The Red Hourglass marks the debut of a fresh, strange, and wonderful new voice in American nature writing."
--Michael Pollan, author of A Place of My Own and Second Nature

From the Hardcover edition.

About this edition

• Publisher: Delacorte Pubns Inc
• Publication date: 1998
• ISBN 10: 0385318871
• ISBN 13: 9780385318877
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 259