Season of the Gar: Adventures in Pursuit of America's Most Misunderstood Fish
"I love Mark Spitzer's passion and energy for gars and, just as important, for the pursuit of gars. Like the novelist and poet he is, Spitzer brings empathy,humor, and deep imagination to a type of writing usually mired in the merely factual. Mark Spitzer had worked hard at his craft daily for twenty years and it shows in every sentence. There is a wildness here--in both fish and man. . . . Thanks to this we can read Season of the Gar and have our lives lifted."--David Gessner, author of Soaring with Fidel: An Osprey Odyssey from Cape Cod to Cuba and Beyond"The prehistoric gar, a fish sometimes mistaken for Nessie, has found its chronicler in Mark Spitzer. This is a work of history, adventure, and philosophy, as suspenseful a tale as any fictional thriller, yet amazingly true and thought provoking. Don't be surprised if this book starts a gar-craze!"--Andrei Codrescu, NPR commentator and author of ThePosthuman Dada Guide: Tzara and Lenin Play Chess"Bravo to Mark Spitzer! He dives headlong into the roiling, snake-infested realm of the gar and exposes ugly truths about the long campaign to rid the earth of these fearsome yet fascinating fishes. By debunking myths about gar, he does for them what Barry Lopez and Rick Bass have done for wolves. . . . Season of the Gar is the best compendium of gar information ever put together. More importantly, it is an emotional essay about one man's enthusiastic inquiry into the proper relationship between man and nature. It's destined to become a classic in outdoor literature."--Keith Sutton, author of Fishing Arkansas and Pro Tactics: Catfish