After years of enjoying Tim Gallagher’s fine articles in Cornell University’s Living Bird magazine, I was nearly giddy (if anyone could imagine that) when I saw Parts Unknown (2001; The Lyons Press; 227 pp.; 26 color photographs; Index; $24.95 hardcover) for sale at the local bookstore. So, after giving a surreptitious glance toward the other customers in the store, I quickly seized the lone copy of Parts Unknown from the shelf before anyone else knew what was happening and shoved my way to the front of the checkout line. The book’s subtitle, “A Naturalist’s Journey in Search of Birds and Wild Places,” confirmed my decision to purchase the book. While looking at the book in the checkout line, I thought I recognized a few of the chapters’ titles, but nowhere was it mentioned that any of the chapters had been previously published. I laughed all the way home, proud of my quick thinking and swift action.
I was very pleased as I read through the introductory essay, which is part autobiography and part travel essay, rich in details of how Gallagher became interested in travel, birding, and conservation issues (especially as related to birds). Gallagher describes one trip he took at 16 years of age: “Sleeping in the car. Living on cans of beans that we put on top of the engine as we drove to warm them up.” I was ready for a book that combined natural history and birds with the travel-writing qualities of books such as John Steinbeck’s Travels with Charlie or Paul Theroux’s Fresh Air Fiend.
Curiously, Gallagher fails to mention in the introductory essay that he has been the editor of Living Bird magazine since 1991, even though he states that “…I’ve written numerous essays about…places and their wildlife. A selection of them appears here.” This was the first hint that Parts Unknown was not a new book of essays but, rather, a collection of previously published articles, many of which, I feared, I had already read. The smug demeanor that I had worn since leaving the bookstore was quickly fading. After checking my entire collection of Living Bird, I found that I had, alas, already read at least ten of the twenty-four chapters.
The first of three main sections of Parts Unknown is also entitled “Parts Unknown.” Except for “The Peregrines of Padre Island,” which describes research and recovery efforts for the peregrine falcon on Padre Island in coastal Texas, the rest of the articles take the reader to the far north in Canada, Greenland, and Iceland. In these chapters, Gallagher effectively uses a creative combination of word-pictures, biology, and travel writing to describe activities of various researchers studying a variety of bird species from dovekies to gyrfalcons.
Because Gallagher is an accomplished photographer, the outstanding features of his articles, as published in Living Bird, are the accompanying photographs. The editors of this book, however, chose to put all of the photographs together in the middle of the book. In addition, they are not presented in the same order as the chapters, and the photographs are not keyed in any way to specific passages in the text (although each has a short caption). I was thus forced to periodically check all of the photographs to see whether the text I happened to be reading may have an accompanying photograph. For this reason, I prefer certain chapters as they appeared in Living Bird, with photographs alongside the relevant text. I also found it frustrating that not all of the chapters have accompanying photographs.
Section II is appropriately entitled “Rare Raptors,” as each of nine chapters focuses on a specific raptor. The chapters in this section are less consistent in style and length than those included in the first section of the book. Several of the chapters in section II highlight subjects such as the plight of the California condor and peregrine falcon. Many of the chapters were written several years before being collected in this book. Chapter 7, “Saving California’s Peregrine Falcons,” first published in 1978, is updated with chapter 8, “Mission Accomplished,” first published in 1999, but the latter chapter was still three years out of date upon publication of Parts Unknown.
Gallagher provides a more current update in some cases, but it is more often the case that the reader is left wanting much more recent information. Three of the chapters in section II are very short, rather unexciting species profiles. By chapter 15, “Lost and found,” in which Gallagher summarizes another researcher’s investigations on certain irregularities associated with museum records of India’s forest owlet, I had almost completely forgotten about the high expectations I had after reading the book’s introductory essay.
Section III, entitled “Birds and Ornithology,” is even more uneven than the previous section. Most of the chapters are quite short, with little space for details or thoughtful digression, undoubtedly a reflection of their original publication requirements. And while this is to be expected with a collection of articles from various sources, chapter 18, “Shorebirds in Spring,” makes such a small impression (chapter 18 is not quite three pages in length, and the main point is that shorebirds are difficult to identify), that it would have been better left out altogether in favor of more color photographs and postscripts. In contrast, I thoroughly enjoyed chapter 16, “With the Sapsuckers in New Jersey,” which describes a 24-hour World Series of Birding, a big-day birding event (Gallagher’s team is called the Sapsuckers). This chapter even has an update on the Sapsuckers and the World Series of Birding since 1992, the chapter’s original year of publication.
In section III, more than anywhere else in the book, Gallagher’s descriptions of birding locations tend to read not unlike a series of prosaic passages from a guidebook. There is no doubt that he provides the reader with useful information. But unless I am specifically planning a trip, why would I want to read in detail about the best way to visit a site? Fortunately, in chapter 23, “A Back Bay Ramble, Gallagher returns to his skillful use of the present-tense narrative with a description of a birding trip to Upper Newport Bay, California. And the following chapter “Can the Everglades Endure?” ends the book with a first-rate description of environmental issues associated with the Everglades in Florida. The chapter ends with a nice update and a warning that “we will have to…be forever ready to fight to preserve these irreplaceable areas. Otherwise the only ‘parts unknown’ our children will ever see will be epitaphs written in books about places that no longer exist.”
Parts Unknown never really did live up to the high expectations that I formed after reading the very excellent introductory essay. Even though I attempted to read all of the chapters anew, as a whole, I could never get totally beyond the fact that I was re-reading at least ten chapters. (I blame the publisher for not providing information on where and when each chapter had previously appeared.) Given all of the new books, magazines, and scientific journals that I am constantly acquiring—not to mention the daily newspaper—I have little time or desire for re-reading. Looked at objectively, though, I think most folks with an interest in nature, especially raptors, will find all of this book informative and interesting. Most of the book is entertaining as well.
Postscript: And from this experience, I have learned that I must try to be more caring and nurturing as I compete—I mean cooperate—with my fellow customers at the local bookstore.
Review by Thomas V. Lerczak
[This review was originally published in Illinois Audubon magazine, Fall 2004 Number290, pages 12-13.]