NATURE NOIR - REVIEWS Here's what reviewers are saying about Jordan Fisher Smith's Nature Noir.... 'Nature Noir': The Lone Ranger   Who hasn't envisioned life as a park ranger? You're in the great outdoors, in the Grand Tetons, maybe, or Yellowstone, being helicoptered in to fight a forest fire or rappelling down a cliff face to save a climber's life -- just you and the law of nature. A few lucky park employees do indeed live that life; early in his career Jordan Fisher Smith, the author of the eloquently meditative ''Nature Noir: A Park Ranger's Patrol in the Sierra,'' counted himself among them. read the full review – Reviewed by Alan Burdick, February 20, 2005 Nature Noir by Jordan Fisher Smith   Recounting 14 bizarre years as a park ranger in a Sierra Nevada wilderness, Smith kicks things off with an indelible image: a boozed-up nature lover lobbing a baby at a moving car. In Smith's account, it's a dead heat as to which was more malign: nature—with floods and throat-choking droughts—or its guests. He writes about the natural world with more grace than anyone since Edward Abbey. article – Reviewed by Malcolm Jones , March 28, 2005 SIERRA STAKEOUT Ranger exposes underside of natural, human-made dramas   "Follow the water." No Deep-Throated environmental informant actually whispers this advice to writer Jordan Fisher Smith late one night in a deserted campground, but the sentiment infuses "Nature Noir," his taut drama of life as a ranger in the Sierra. Fisher Smith's book follows the tradition of nature writers such as Emerson, Thoreau, John Muir and Annie Dillard. But "Nature Noir" is no Emersonian ode to pastoral transcendentalism, nor is it a Muirian celebration of the sacred in the wilderness. The writer who most closely anticipates Fisher Smith's themes is Joan Didion.... read the full review – Reviewed by Jennie Yabroff, February 13, 2005 NPR's Morning Edition Rene Montaine interviews Jordan Fisher Smith   Click on this link to listen to Jordan Fisher Smith's interview with Rene Montaine on NPR's Morning Edition, August 25, 2005.  This interview will play on Realplayer or Windows Media Player.  To download a free copy of Realplayer go to Real.com Nature Noir A Park Ranger's Patrol in the Sierra By Jordan Fisher Smith   Don't let the title fool you. Jordan Fisher Smith's extraordinary memoir isn't some dark, one-note, wilderness-cops-and-robbers story. Sure, Smith recounts juicy details of the fistfights, suicides, and murder he investigated during his 14 years as a park ranger on California's American River. But more than that, Nature Noir marks the debut of a terrific new nature writer, one whose penetrating, ranger's-eye view of the Sierra Nevada recalls the plainspoken timbre of Edward Abbey and David James Duncan. read the full review – Reviewed by Bruce Barcott, April, 2005 CANYON COUNTY ALMANAC: 'Nature Noir' is a smart, magically written lament for a lost land   "Smith's "Nature Noir" is a nature book unlike any other. This nuanced, pain-wracked elegy for a lost land is at the same time infused with wonder, laced with heart-stopping descriptions of natural beauty and peppered with gritty, anti-romantic, all-too-real tales of cops 'n' bad guys in the great outdoors." read the full review – Reviewed by Arthur Salm, February 13, 2005 home | author | appearances | contact us | buy Nature Noir excerpt | ranger jobs | American River Copyright © 2005 by Jordan Fisher Smith. All Rights Reserved. "NATURE NOIR" is a trademark of Jordan Fisher Smith. No portion of this Website or the works of authorship described here may be used in any manner or for any purpose without the prior written consent of the copyright owner with the exception of brief quotes in published reviews. site by Velocity7