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  • Where the Wild Books Are: A Field Guide to Ecofiction
  • O. Alan Weltzien
Where the Wild Books Are: A Field Guide to Ecofiction. By Jim Dwyer. Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2010. 264 pages, $29.95.

Patrick D. Murphy's blurb on the back cover of Jim Dwyer's extraordinary annotated bibliography begins, "There is not and will not be anything else like this book on the market," and I believe he's right. Dwyer spent many years reading and compiling this "guide to the growing fields of ecofiction" which he judges "the most complete and best research guide to date" (vii). He opens by briefly surveying a range of definitions of ecofiction, and the subsequent seven chapters—distended lists—prove oddly tiring in the reading. How did Dwyer actually read every one of these hundreds of titles? Where the Wild Books Are proves an indispensable reference guide, but one best approached by sampling. For example, he persuasively locates the "golden age" of ecofiction in the 1970s, with 1975 posing as the banner year (28–29). [End Page 96]

Taxonomies are structures of division, if not exclusion, as well as systems of classification. This Field Guide can't help but glance, occasionally, at the poetry and nonfiction of writers who also have written ecofiction. Dwyer deftly provides cross-references as he goes, thus recognizing the sometimes substantial overlap between two or more of his categories. Arguably, the heart of the matter unfolds in chapters 2 through 5, which progress from historical to contemporary American, Native American, and Canadian ecofiction to ecofiction around the world. The latter survey is especially helpful in introducing American readers to a host of writers from five continents whose works have been translated into English.

Dwyer has generously covered genre fiction, featured in three of his four final chapters. His project remains entirely descriptive, and the language of critical assessment is mostly missing. Given a project of this scope, classification questions appear inevitable. It seems odd, in his review of James Welch's novels (72), to have omitted Welch's second novel, The Death of Jim Loney (1979), which is as much ecofiction as the other four. Also, I question his placement of Peter Matthiesson's Watson novel (Shadow Country 2008) in the final chapter, "Mysteries," rather than his third, "Contemporary Ecofiction." In addition, I note a few factual errors: William Faulkner's home is not located in the Mississippi delta (19), and A. B. Guthrie Jr. wrote a set of six historical novels (1947–82), not a trilogy (119).

More seriously, the lack of transitions within and between chapter sections makes for unsettling reading. By his penultimate chapter, on "Green Speculative Fiction," he proceeds alphabetically, as he does in his final chapter on "Mysteries," but this traditional scheme is absent earlier. The reader misses some overall assessment after the eighth chapter. For what kinds of reasons has ecofiction surged in popularity in the past two generations? Where does Dwyer see the exploding interest going in the near future? The book's teeming information would benefit from more annotation and evaluation.

Where the Wild Books Are includes a sixty-page bibliography that presents the lists in pure form. Also, before the "Notes" and after that last page of "Mysteries," Dwyer includes his most subjective judgment: his "Appendix: 100 Best Books," within which "the top ten appear in boldface" (185–88). This list invites critical analysis and recommends itself. My quarrels notwithstanding, Dwyer has performed an invaluable service with his Field Guide, and anyone seriously interested in green literature will need to keep it handy on a reference shelf. Wild Books represents one of the widest bibliographies I've ever traversed. [End Page 97]

O. Alan Weltzien
University of Montana Western, Dillon
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