Fire Scars

I have a book recommendation for you, but first, let me tell you why I think this book is important.  

When I read a book, I totally immerse myself in a different world.   If my house caught fire while I was reading, I wouldn’t notice it until the book caught fire.  This is not just idle speculation, once while reading by candlelight in my pickup, the candle fell over and set fire to the dashboard and I didn’t notice until the fumes from the burning plastic made it hard to breathe.  (If you are curious, it was a book by Steven King.)

Nothing, however, will break my immersion into an alternate world more than an author’s making a glaring mistake because of ignorance of the subject matter being discussed.  Just last week, I set aside a book that claimed that Abraham Lincoln was assassinated before he could be elected to a second term, a mistake so startling that it was like suddenly being doused with a bucket of cold water.   I can think of several books that were all but destroyed by horrendous geographical errors (there are, for example, no mountains along the gulf coast of Texas) or the absurdity of a gun-wielding protagonist’s inserting a fresh magazine into his revolver.  (For God’s sake, will someone please tell Len Deighton that you can’t put a silencer on a revolver and that the fastest way to reload a Smith and Wesson is not to swap cylinders!)

These idiotic mistakes don’t happen in good books because good authors write about subjects they know.  In Agatha Christie’s sixty-six murder mysteries, she killed off thirty people with poison—more than any other novelist ever has.  Christie used poisons in her books because she knew about them, having worked as an apothecary’s assistant in a hospital during the Great War.  Back in those days, most medicines were still compounded by hand, requiring extensive knowledge of the toxic effects of the ingredients used.

Another great example of an author’s writing about what they know is Dick Francis, the British jockey who turned author after an injury on the track ended his racing career.  Francis wrote wonderful books, each centered around some aspect of the racetrack that he knew so well and could describe in such detail that the reader would enjoy.  

This is why I really love the new book by John (Jack) Wright, Fire Scars.  Wright, a retired geographer and conservationist from New Mexico State University (occasionally “affectionally” referred to as Enema U in this blog) has written about what he knows and understands.  The book centers around forest conservation in Montana, where the author lives half of every year, dividing his time between New Mexico in the winter and Montana during the summer.  

I’ve known Jack for decades, as he was one of the best, if not the best, of the lecturers and mentors at the university.  In his classes, he displayed a unique ability to connect with his students—a gift that he displays equally in his writing.  Never “preachy”, this book tackles complex subject matter and informs even as it entertains.

To really explain why I think this book is so important, I might have to explain just why Jack and I are good friends.  On the surface, we have almost nothing in common:  He’s a damn Yankee from Maine, while I’m a poor, dumb ol’ country boy from West Texas.  He went to Berkeley and I graduated from a state agricultural college.  Consequently, you could comfortably park an oil tanker in the gap between our political beliefs—except that as Jack and I discussed politics and current events, we found that we agreed far more often than we disagreed.  Given a bottle of Laphroaig and about an hour of intense “discussion”, we invariably find compromises and agree on pragmatic solutions to even the most difficult of problems. 

These terms describe why this is such a great book on conservation in the West:  Wright is both pragmatic and ethical.  There is an endless supply of books that extol the virtues of conservation and respect for the fragile environment of the Western United States, but almost all will be justifiably ignored because these books promote policies that cannot and will not be implemented in today’s complex society.  If the solution involves the total elimination of ranching or of the petroleum industry or of mining, it won’t matter that your cause is noble because your program will never be implemented.  Wright’s book exhibits just as deep a respect and love of the West, while supporting what can realistically, possibly be implemented.

While reading Fire Scars, I frequently remembered my pleasure in reading Edward Abbey’s Money Wrench Gang.  Both authors have extensive experience and knowledge of the fragile American West, but where Abbey wrote a feel-good story about solutions that were absurdly impossible to implement, Wright presents intelligent policies that are well within our grasp.  Where Abbey was a mad poet, Wright is a wise and thoughtful scholar.  The former may be lovable, but the latter is the one we should listen to.

Everyone wants a clean environment, everyone wants to preserve America’s wilderness, and everyone wants to protect our forests, but far too frequently, the proposals to accomplish these goals are heavy on emotion and short on science.  All too frequently, conservationists ignore the realities of economics, politics, and population pressure and propose impossible solutions, while ignoring the measures that can realistically be implemented.  Fire Scars avoids that problem by presenting realistic solutions but still entertaining us with a solid mystery that is inhabited by believable characters.  

Because I know Jack, I know how much work and thought went into this book.  The result is something you will enjoy, too.  Thankfully, he created memorable characters in a setting that will almost certainly lead to a sequel.  I look forward to reading his next book.