David Quaamen (1948 – )
American writer

Nature writing is a well established tradition in American literature, yet the label has in recent years come to be considered one-dimensional and even a little quaint by 'serious' writers and 'real' scientists. Many of the best nature writers are not trained ecologists and ecology is supposed to have out-grown natural history. Intellectuals belittle the popularity of nature writing and see themselves as beyond the backwoods genre.

Still, the American public continues to gain much of its understanding and awareness of natural systems, of environmental issues, and of humanity's threat to wild species and places from the best and most popular of the nature writers—Edwin Way Teale, Annie Dillard, Terry Tempest Williams...and David Quammen. Part of the exposure comes from the fact that many of these writers make a good part of their living by lecturing and 'reading' widely in popular venues. Quammen, however, considers his writing as departing "distantly from conventional nature writing, of which I have never much cared to be either a reader or an author." He started writing as a novelist, but, beginning in 1981, spent 15 years writing a column titled "Natural Acts," for Outside magazine, his job "to think about the natural world, and about human relationships with that world, in a way that would interest" the half million readers of the magazine, an assignment which he says allowed him "unimaginable freedom to explore a wide range of peculiar theories, remote places, bizarre facts, and unpopular opinions." His first collection of essays (Natural Acts: A Sidelong View of Science and Nature ), mostly taken from his column, appeared in 1985. That collection was well received, with one reviewer suggesting that Quammen "breathes importance into the little-known nitty-gritty of biology" and in the process "describes wondrous places, people and situations."

Still, Quammen does write about nature, and though many of his essays are "very funny and very offbeat," (the word quirky is often used) they are just as frequently serious commentaries on science and its relationship to politics, philosophy, and a variety of other subjects. Perhaps then, it is more appropriate to use his own descriptor and call him a science journalist. Lee Dembart in the Los Angeles Times stated that "Quammen likes science for its own sake, but he also likes it for the larger truths it suggests. He works the fringes of science and draws conclusions that are universal."

Marilyn McEntyre, author of one of the most detailed looks to date at Quammen's work, is enthusiastic: Quam men's "gift to the general reader is to make science accessible, compelling, and, not least important, entertaining." Her comments underline the idiosyncrasies of Quammen's work: "Certainly Quammen is concerned with those central and urgent ethical dilemmas that define and unite what may loosely be known as the 'environmental movement,' but he also pauses to consider the ethics of domestic dog ownership," a reference to his questions about possible 'unnatural' harm to dogs from their confinement in urban and suburban areas, "daring to throw darts at one of the most sacred of American icons, 'man's best friend.'"

Born in Cincinnati, in 1948, and spending a childhood in southwest Ohio as the only boy of three children, he was the "designated mowist" of the family lawn, a repeated chore that probably had something to do with the "why lawns?" kinds of questions about human-nature relationships that appear so often in his writings . Quammen went on to earn a B.A. degree in English from Yale University in 1970, and, as a Rhodes scholar, a B. Litt. in 1973 from Oxford.

The Song of the Dodo (1996), one of Quammen's most recent, yet most recognized books, illustrates both his grasp of current ideas in science and the heat that he (and the scientists themselves) take when they relate those ideas to how "humans in all their variousness, regard and react to the natural world, in all its variousness." The variety in human-environment relationships is a basic theme Quammen claims for much of his writing. He built the popular book Song of the Dodo on the less publicly accessible island biogeography research of Robert MacArthur and E. O. Wilson, creating a sharp, clear depiction of the ideas that islands are bounded, isolated places vulnerable to extinctions, a vulnerability repeated as humans create "isolated, island-like enclaves" in terrestrial ecosystems, places too small, fragmented, and isolated to support diverse populations.

This mix of grave warnings of environmental degradation and species extinctions with personal anecdotes and popular travel writing draws both praise and criticism. His books are accessible to a wide audience, so the environmental issues he discusses are widely disseminated, increasing the public's awareness. Even reviews in biology journals like BioScience laud Quammen's island biogeography book as "a work in the finest tradition of autobiographical natural history," a history traced back to the great naturalists of the nineteenth century, including Darwin. But Quammen doesn't escape the general questions raised by critics of island biogeography theory of how different land 'islands' surrounded by land are from islands bounded by water.

Some critics think that Quammen's accessibility is based on the sugar-coating of information: "Quammen has succumbed to the fashionable conceit that 'popular' science has to be diluted with travelogue and soap biography." However, Bill McKibben, in Audubon magazine, echoed many others when he proclaimed Song of the Dodo a "masterpiece of scientific journalism...and a heroic achievement."

[Gerald L. Young Ph.D. ]