Publishers Weekly Starred Review: This passionate work is a welcome and worthy addition to the growing canon of environmental literature.
Publishers Weekly Starred Review: Naturalist and explorer Peacock (In the Shadow of the Sabertooth) presents a captivating retrospective on his life in the wild. Using vivid imagery, he reflects on humanity's relationship with the natural world, his tour of duty in Vietnam, living among Grizzly bears in Yellowstone National Park, and, appropriately, mortality. Each memory encapsulates Peacock's profound compassion for humans and animals alike, and his deep sense of responsibility. After attending to too much collateral damage-that cowardly phrase they apply to the pile of small, dismembered bodies after a botched air attack, as a Special Forces medic in Vietnam from 1965 to 1968, Peacock applied the anger I had built doing that to the defense of wild things. Readers will appreciate his madcap yet reverential takes on nature; recalling a close encounter with a snake on the Missouri headwaters, he wonders, How the hell could anyone believe humans were the center of the world when facing poisonous reptiles, grizzlies... or polar bears on equal terms and neutral turf? While ruefully aware of the prospect of catastrophic global warming (The beast of today is climate change), Peacock's heightened awareness of the beauty of the wild never wanes. This passionate work is a welcome and worthy addition to the growing canon of environmental literature. (Jan.) https://www.publishersweekly.com/978-1-952338-04-5
So, was it worth it overall? For Peacock, rescued by wildlings from war traumas and from then on embracing conservation, the answer is a resounding yes - his has been a good life full of swamps, rivers, woods, deserts, and mountains.
For readers craving inspiration and vicarious thrills through tales of adventures in some of the world's last untamed, uncrowded places? Likewise. As for the lasting impact of his work for the grizzlies and other charismatic fauna which are now being decimated by heatwaves, hunting, and development? That remains to be seen. --
Earth Island Journal
Proving again why he's a vital voice for the wild, Doug Peacock takes us there and back again with his new memoir
Was It Worth It?: A Wilderness Warrior's Long Trail Home (Patagonia, $27.95). This series of vignettes of high adventure and contemplative meanderings provides an unflinching assessment of a life lived in, and for, the wild spaces of the world.
The stand-alone narratives range from a search for signs of the last grizzly in Mexico's Sierra Madres to walking point to protect an expedition from polar bears in Canada's High Arctic; from island hopping via kayak off the coast of Belize to repatriating arrowheads via canoe in the Shiawassee Flats, known by some as the Michigan Everglades. Any sharing of such episodes would make for fascinating reading, but it is Peacock's natural grace with language that elevates this book from the crowded ground of mere adventure writing into the rarified air of literature.
Peacock is mostly known as a grizzly bear expert, a monkey wrencher, an advocate for the wild, and even as a damn fine cook. But beyond all of that - or maybe because of it - he is a gifted writer of necessary and beautiful work. His recent award in literature from the American Academy of Arts and Letters is evidence of this, and his newly-released book is further proof. --
Big Sky Journala spellbinding collection of stories and
adventures. -- CFF Review
Each of Peacock's adventures unravels with wit, insight, and devotion. Describing a place or an event isn't too challenging, but bringing a reader into your consciousness and taking them along for the ride is something few writers capture well. At this, Peacock is superb.
-- Adventures Northwest 