Call of the Mild

April 16, 2012
Despite what the title may imply, McCaulou and her writing are anything but mild. Her fortitude is obvious from the onset, when she takes a chance on herself by giving up her East Coast city life for a job writing for a small newspaper in Bend, Ore. Once there, she slowly embraces the outdoor lifestyle of her new home, first by skiing and fly-fishing, and later by exploring the hunting subculture that comes to fascinate her. Afraid of guns and wary of guts, her forays into hunting may be slow and sometimes timid, but the way she continually faces her fears is inspiring. With each new challenge—from purchasing a license and firearms safety to pulling the trigger or pulling out an elk’s intestines—she makes in-depth explorations into the cultural, economic, ecological, nutritional, and political aspects of hunting. But where McCaulou’s writing truly shines is when she analyzes her personal connection to how she kills to how she lives her life. Unafraid to lay bare her evolving “cycle of life” feelings about shooting her first bird on the day her niece was born or confronting how the recent deaths of close family members affects her emotions about hunting, McCaulou forces herself to face the best and worst of both life and death. Definitely at the top of the heap of the recent array of books that explore our connection to land and food, McCaulou confronts everything you think you know about hunting and in doing so brings a welcome touch of humanity to a pursuit thought by many to be lacking exactly that. Agent, Daniel Greenberg.

April 15, 2012
Eloquent debut memoir about a young woman's transformation from a New York City urbanite into a small-town Oregon hunter with a conscience. In her mid 20s, journalist McCaulou suddenly found that her job as an independent film production assistant had lost its charm. While the work put her in contact with indie stars and "fun, artsy people" all over New York City, she couldn't get away from the feeling that what she was doing was "one big, glitzy distraction." On a whim, McCaulou accepted a job at a Bend, Ore., newspaper. She thought the experience would offer her a much-needed change of scenery and a new arsenal of journalistic skills. What she discovered was a lifestyle that, though "a distant cousin" to the one she had known, proved far more satisfying than anything she imagined. As she learned to fly-fish, McCaulou wrote articles about natural resources and the environment. One topic that intrigued her was hunting, which she had long associated with cruel and indiscriminate killing. The more she researched this sport, the more she came to believe that true hunters, as opposed to poachers, were really "environmentalist role models." To better understand their lifestyle, McCaulou decided to take up the sport herself. She gradually grew to appreciate hunting for what it taught her about her relationship to the wilderness. Killing, and eating, a hunted animal created an intimate bond between her, another creature and, by extension, the land on which that creature lived. Throughout the book, the author shares her mostly profound insights. A powerful story in which the author shapes a narrative of personal growth into a symbol of modern humanity's alienation from the natural world.

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