Nature Noir A Park Ranger's Patrol in the Sierra [Paperback]

A nature book unlike any other, Jordan Fisher Smith's startling account of fourteen years as a park ranger thoroughly dispels our idealized visions of life in the great outdoors. Instead of scout troops and placid birdwatchers, Smith's beat -- a stretch of land that has been officially condemned to be flooded -- brings him into contact with drug users tweaked out to the point of violence, obsessed miners, and other dangerous creatures. In unflinchingly honest prose, he reveals the unexpectedly dark underbelly of patrolling and protecting public lands.

A nature book unlike any other, Jordan Fisher Smith's startling account of fourteen years as a park ranger thoroughly dispels our idealized visions of life in the great outdoors. Instead of scout troops and placid birdwatchers, Smith's beat -- a stretch of land that has been officially condemned to be flooded -- brings him into contact with drug users tweaked out to the point of violence, obsessed miners, and other dangerous creatures. In unflinchingly honest prose, he reveals the unexpectedly dark underbelly of patrolling and protecting public lands.

Eloquently meditative . . . [Smith writes]with a gritty candor -- think of a gun-toting Norman Maclean or Wallace Stegner. -- Alan Burdick The New York Times Book Review

Gloriously unlike anything I've ever read before . . . gives entree into a strange, dark, and mesmerizing outdoor world that's absolutely unforgettable. -- Caroline Leavitt Boston Globe

He writes about the natural world with more grace than anyone since Edward Abbey. Newsweek

Extraordinary . . . Nature Noir marks the debut of a terrific new nature writer, one whose penetrating, ranger's-eye view of the Sierra Nevada recalls the plain-spoken timbre of Edward Abbey and David James Duncan. Outside

Gracefully weaves scenes and stories with context, history and reflection, in ways recalling the best of John McPhee. Los Angeles Times

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