Book Review: "The Voice of the Butterfly"
by John Nichols

Chronicle Books, San Francisco, 2001.

Review by Martin Murie

Charlie McFarland, fifty something, pacifist, but stubborn.

"Scaredy cat though I am I am also a very stubborn man. I will hang on like a bulldog, a snapping turtle, a tick with Lyme disease."

Charlie is a member of "the coalition," that in the opening chapters seems to consist of three citizens of Suicide City, Charlie and a lawyer named Farragut Wallaby and a feisty reporter. They hope to get an "endangered" status for the Phistic copper butterfly from Peter Lithgow at Fish and Wildlife, who also happens to be a proponent of the Adolf Eichman School of Environmental Management.

This is satire consisting of copy from real life; with titles and names slightly exaggerated. We recognize adherents of the Adolf Eichman School of Environmental Management, don't we ? And traffic gridlock? "The American Way of Death right here in Suicide City ..." The narratve proceeds to describe the vehicles in the traffic jam and citizens of that city that he has tangled with before, for he has been a fighter on behalf of the Earth for a long time. "There goes Marcia Stonebutter Crawford iln her aluminum-green, hermetically-sealed Dodge Shadow with Alex and Gwyneth in their kiddie-proof, Allstate-approved car seats in crash helmets in back, talking on the cell phone ..." On and on, makes and models of cars and their occupants, embellished with slightly goofy first and middle and last names, pets getting the full treatment too.

Charlie is loyal to his deranged wife, Kelly. He remembers the first year of their marriage when Kelly was a vibrant mate, though she did tease him about his fretting over the death of the world's frogs and other outlandish concerns. He takes care of her cats, all of them picked up at the animal shelter where they were passing time, awaiting death. Now the marriage is on the rocks and Kelly, damagaed by drugs, drifts around the city, ugly and obnoxious.

This novel is deadly serious and yet gives us hilarious enjoyment as we recognize the diversity of faults and virtues in the "coalitions" we harbor, the outrageous bads and the surprising goods. Nobody is perfect; it is good to realize that, time and again, as we read reality.

I won't spoil your fun by hinting at the surprises awaiting Charlie along the way.

The dedication is to "Kathy Anderson, Marion Wood and Jay Schaefer . . . and anyone else who ever helped an endangered butterfly."


The question following the dedication:

"How can we save ourselves before we self-destruct ?"