Wildflower

April 13, 2009
Vanity Fair
contributing editor Seal expands on his August 2006 article for the magazine in this sweeping and atmospheric biography of the conservationist and wildlife filmmaker Joan Root, who was brutally murdered in her home on Lake Naivasha, Kenya, a region she was trying to save from poachers and environmental ruin. Intrigued by Root's suspicious death and cinematic life with husband and nature documentarian Alan Root, Seal mines Joan's diaries and writings to offer a lush love story set in the heyday of British colonialism in Nairobi, where amid the decadence and dilettantism, Alan fell in love with the lovely Joan Thorpe, an “Ingrid Bergman lookalike” and daughter of an English adventurer. Their partnership produced award-winning documentaries (their 1978 film on termite mounds, Mysterious Castles of Clay
, was narrated by Orson Welles and nominated for an Oscar) and television specials. Their inability to have children was a source of constant sorrow for the couple, and despite the romance of their joint pursuits, their marriage unraveled. Seal's effort is a seamless story redolent with adventure, passion and heartbreak; its beauty nearly eclipses the tragedy of Root's untimely—and unsolved—death in 2006. Photos.

May 1, 2009
Zesty biography of wildlife documentarian and conservationist Joan Root (1937–2006).

By the time Alan and Joan Root's marriage ended in 1981, they had gained renown as documentary filmmakers of Africa's fauna—or rather Alan had, as Vanity Fair contributing editor Seal makes clear. Spouting ideas and exuding reckless energy, Alan was the kind of gentleman who tended to hog all the oxygen, while shy, retiring Joan sturdily managed their affairs and the support side of the operation. ("You were the wind beneath my wings," he admitted in a letter after their divorce.) But she would involuntarily steal the headlines in 2006 when she was shot to death in her home in Kenya, perhaps by robbers, perhaps by people angered by her strong stand against poaching and pollution. To make sense of that unsolved crime, Seal offers a detailed look at Root's life. The author talked extensively with her former husband and had access to a trove of Joan's diaries and letters (many unsent to Alan). Limning the Roots' marriage and professional collaboration, Seal captures both the extraordinary quality of their work and Joan's personality—specifically her attraction to her emotional opposite in Alan and her depression when he left. Seal expertly draws out the drama of the Roots' days afield,"being chased, mauled, bitten, gored, and stung by every conceivable creature as they drove, flew, ran, and swam across Africa," filming as they went. Even more compelling is the author's portrait of the years Joan spent alone on the shores of Kenya's Lake Naivasha, her fortitude in trying to protect the ecologically fragile area from poaching and illegal fishing and the fallout of the flower industry that sprang up on its shore. These were complex issues that braided social, economic and cultural factors, further fraught by Joan's relationship with a poacher.

Transports readers into the midst of an incandescent, doomed life.

(COPYRIGHT (2009) KIRKUS REVIEWS/NIELSEN BUSINESS MEDIA, INC. ALL RIGHTS RESERVED.)

Starred review from May 15, 2009
Seal, a contributing editor at "Vanity Fair" and a journalist for 34 years, expands on his portrait of British naturalist and filmmaker Joan Root, which appeared in the August 2006 issue of "Vanity Fair" following her brutal murder at her Kenyan farmhouse. Seal gives us the sad details up front and then leads us, gently and sensitively, through the story of this shy yet remarkable woman. The films she made with husband Alan Root became international hits, and one, "Mysterious Castles of Clay", was nominated for an Academy Award in 1978. After her divorce, Joan Root became an ardent conservationist who fought poaching and illegal fishing on Lake Navaisha, a passion that may have led to her death. This is a great story built from many interviews of friends and family and from Root's extensive diaries and letters. What an adventure! What an example! Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 2/1/09; film rights were sold to Julia Roberts.Ed.]Margaret F. Dominy, Drexel Univ. Lib., Philadelphia

Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

Starred review from June 1, 2009
Kenyan conservationist and wildlife filmmaker Joan Thorpe Root lived a trailblazing life, but sadly it was her death that initially drew journalist Seals attention. Murdered in her home in January 2006, Root joined the tragic list of slain African wildlife champions that includes Dian Fossey and Joy and George Adamson of Born Free fame. In this riveting portrait, Seal incisively tracks Joans affinity for the wild from her birth in Nairobi in 1932 to helping her intrepid father manage Kenyas first photo safaris, to her risky work with her husband, the innovative filmmaker and infamous daredevil Alan Root. Lovely, shy, and unflappable, Joan did everything from organizing their ambitious expeditions to dancing in front of a spitting cobra so Alan could film an attack. The messy end of their marriage was devastating to Joan, as was the environmental nightmare that engulfed her cherished home and animal refuge on Lake Naivasha, as Kenyas flower industry consumed and polluted the landscape and poachers decimated fish and wildlife. Joan struggled heroically to protect this precious ecosystem but became ensnared in a net of social crises and crime. Seals gripping chronicle ofnaturalist Rootslife ofadventure andloss, beauty and brutality, is fascinating on many fronts and will remain in demand with a movie version on the horizon.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)