Thomas McNamee

From reviews of "The Return of the Wolf to Yellowstone":

An informed account of the reconstitution of wolf packs, by a writer who can sympathize with both lovers and haters of wolves.
--New York Times Book Review

In his straightforward and often sparely poetic voice, and with his stringent sense of fairness, Thomas McNamee tackles the complex story of "The Return of the Wolf to Yellowstone." McNamee has been a participant in and intimate witness to the struggle. He has a point of view, but always presents both sides of the issue. He has a gift as a plain-spoken storyteller....and is a wry observer....Rare is a scene more powerful than the one in which a heavy-drinking troublemaker, standing by his broken-down truck, shoots the most magnificent of the released wolves for the fun of it....There are glorious moments of the translocated wolves hunting, mating, and establishing new home ranges. There are harrowing reports of wolves killed by cars, bullets, wolf warfare, euthanasia, and burns from a boiling hot spring....This is a deep-feeling and thoughtful book, steeped in wolf biology but informed by ecology, politics, and basic human nature.
--Boston Globe (Vicki Croke)

McNamee makes no pretense to a false objectivity. He wants the wolf back. He is a journalist, not a historian, but any historian worth his ink could cite McNamee; he is a primary source, having been there--as [Chairman of the Board] of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, an observer of the trials and legal proceedings--and done that--struggled and trudged alongside members of the restoration project in the fields of snow and muck and mud....McNamee's writing is economical and unforced, usually witty, and often insightful. He allows himself the occasional lyrical passage--given the setting, Yellowstone, what writer could resist “beauty that our bones remember”--but does not allow flashy technique to intrude on his narrative. And a narrative it is.
--Missoula, Mont., Missoulian (Martin Richard)

A cohesive, compelling report of a real-life biological adventure....McNamee's pages have an unmistakable lyrical ring, which makes "The Return of the Wolf to Yellowstone" exceptional.
--Bozeman, Mont., Chronicle (Todd Wilkinson)

Thomas McNamee puts us into the scientists' spotter planes and behind their binoculars during the wolves' critical first spring in Yellowstone. His day-by-day account is suspenseful and often poetic.
--Los Angeles Times (Michael Harris)

It is a longstanding truism that nature books, because they are reflective and generally lack action, must be beautifully written. McNamee's work certainly passes that test, but it does more. With brisk writing and easily digestible chapters, it conveys the drama of the wolf program....A reader would be challenged to leave this book without a greater appreciation for the wolf and its importance to the landscape.
--Memphis Commercial Appeal (Tom Charlier)

Movingly written and factually impeccable, "The Return of the Wolf to Yellowstone" qualifies as one of the best environmental books of the decade.
--Memphis Flyer (Debbie Gilbert)

A fine chronicle...McNamee is hardly a neutral observer, but his book is fair. Indeed, more than once, it is equally unflattering to some in both the anti- and pro-wolf camps. An outstanding job.
--Yale Magazine

A gripping story...McNamee's fine account of the reintroduction of an essential part of the wild into the wild should appeal to a broad spectrum of readers.
--Publishers Weekly

McNamee is comfortable with ambiguity and compromise, invaluable traits that shape his fiction and nonfiction. An active advocate for the reintroducion of the gray wolf to Yellowstone National Park, he kept careful watch over the legal wrangling that accompanied this controversial endavor, the challenges of its execution, and the complex questions it has raised, then recorded the entire story in this vivid day-to-day chronicle.
--Booklist (Donna Seaman)

A masterful work.
--Wolf Page

A wonderfully dramatic book, beautifully written.
--Alvin H. Josephy, Jr.

A deliciously written account of people and perceptions, of icon animals and myths. This is that rarity: a rip-roaring page-turner of a nature conservation book.
--Thomas E. Lovejoy, Smithsonian Institution

Yellowstone--as no one knows better than Tom McNamee--is at once a natural and a bureaucratic terrain. It takes a writer of McNamee's keen intelligence and sheer engagement with his subject to portray in all its complexity the world the gray wolf found waiting for it when it was reintroduced to Yellowstone. This book is the best illustration we have, at this end of the century, of man's sheer cussedness, for good and evil, in the face of nature, and it's an extraordinary evocation of nature itself, in the person of Canis lupus.
--Verlyn Klinkenborg

"The Return of the Wolf to Yellowstone" follows a trail as complex and fraught with peril as the lives of the magnificent and maligned animals it chronicles. Much more than a record of bureaucratic, legislative, and judicial in-fighting, this book is informed throughout by biological insight and graced with lyrical observations of the natural world. Best of all, it reads like a thriller.
--William Hjortsberg

What McNamee does in this heartfelt (and carefully researched) book is to show that not only are civilization and wildness not incompatible, but that, indeed, a real civilization is perhaps our greatest hope for the preservation of all that is wild. A skilled story teller, McNamee involves us intimately in the lives of the first Yellowstone wolves in over 70 years, as well as those of the biologists, politicians, dreamers, and doers deeply involved in their presence....A wonderful book.
--Ruth Rudner

Few people understand the forces that shape the arguments, both for and against the return, as well as McNamee. Former president of the Greater Yellowstone Coalition, author of one of the definitive books on Yellowstone's grizzly, he leads us through the minefield of conflicting views on the re-introduction. He offers up extraordinary profiles of those who were instrumental in the return of the wolf, illustrating the controversy that swirled like spindrift through the ranks of the pro-wolf forces. Buy the book.
--GrizTrax Magazine

This is a dramatic, well-researched account of the reintroduction of the wolf to Yellowstone.
--Eugene, Ore., Register-Guard (Faris Cassell)

A fresh perspective on wolves....Residents this season have heard lots about wolves, but Thomas McNamee brings a fresh perspective to the story. He was a part-time rancher himself while writing this captivating book, but was also drawn to the wolves more deeply than he had first realized.

McNamee himself is a character in this book, giving it an inviting and personal air, but does not force his views on the reader. He shows the reader a federal wildlife agent tracking a wolf-killer outside of Red Lodge and even opens the window on curious rivalries and tensions between agencies involved in various chapters of the wolf story. Parts of the book are almost dramatic in their intensity, while others slow the pace as the wolves romp and play.
--Billings, Mont., Gazette