#steverinella

“Truth be told, I have lived a life plenty comfortable with my disdain toward hunters and hunting. And then along comes Steven Rinella and his revelatory memoir Meat Eater to ruin everything. Unless you count the eternal pursuit of the unmetered parking space, I am not a hunter. I am, however, on a constant quest for good writing. Meat Eater begins with a promise—'This book has a hell of a lot going for it, simply because it’s a hunting story'—and then delivers ceaselessly, like a Domino’s guy with OCD. This is survival of the most literate. Graphic, sure, but less so than an episode of ‘CSI,’ and with more believable emoting…this—genuine passion, humbly conveyed—is when nonfiction slaughters fiction and hangs it over its mantel. The text is relentlessly vivid and clear…the commitment, effort and ardor are unflinching. What Rinella does to prepare a muskrat trap when he’s in fifth grade takes five more steps and is infinitely more loving than whatever I did as a fifth grader to break in my baseball glove. With every chapter, you get a history lesson, a hunting lesson, a nature lesson and a cooking lesson, and most of the chapters end with 'tasting notes' on various game. … Readers will never ask themselves, 'What is he talking about?' The only question they might have is, 'Why isn’t this guy the head of the NRA?'… again and again, his descriptive powers trump gruesomeness…. Meat Eater offers an overabundance to savor.”

— New York Times Book Review