Gordon Grice has written about the dark corners of biology for The New Yorker (where he tackled the history of post-mortem dissections), Harper’s (black widow spiders), and Discover (leprosy). He also writes horror stories, including the Best of the ‘Net winner “The White Cat” and the Year’s Best Fantasy and Horror runner-up “Hide.” He has taught the literature of horror at California Institute of Arts, the University of Minnesota, and the University of St. Thomas. He has also taught interdisciplinary courses on the science and literature of homicide and of man-eating animals.
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The Red HourglassLives of the PredatorsFrom"Black Widow"
I decided the caterpillar was too stupid to live. I put it into the carabid beetle’s container. The caterpillar was much larger, but it had no means of defense. The carabid sliced into it and lapped at its leaking blood. Because the caterpillar was so big, the carabid had to repeat his attack eight or ten times. The caterpillar crawled away frantically for the first few wounds, but it was so slow that its movements hardly inconvenienced the beetle drinking from its bleeding flank. After ten minutes or so the caterpillar lay still. Its jade flesh turned black as the beetle chewed and drained it.
The Red Hourglass :Lives of the Predators -
The Red HourglassLives of the PredatorsFrom"Mantid"
The copulation continues. It lacks the aerobics of a mammalian encounter. After the insertion it involves, besides the cannibalism, merely clinging and a slight pulsing in the male’s soft abdomen. It may go on for a long time; some couplings have outlasted my patience for watching. The genitals fit so tightly that, if you try to separate the pair, their bodies will tear apart before they disengage.
The Red Hourglass :Lives of the Predators -
The Red HourglassLives of the PredatorsFrom"Rattlesnake"
A prairie dog guard sees a rattlesnake coming and chirps the alarm. The adult prairie dogs defend their burrows, throwing their tails up to appear menacing and making bluff charges at the snake. They work in teams, one distracting while another rushes in for a bite. The rodents have formidable teeth and can kill a rattlesnake, though they rarely manage to. Some people say prairie dogs will seal a rattlesnake in their own burrow once he’s inside, entombing him alive, Poe-style.
The Red Hourglass :Lives of the Predators
“Grice eagerly seeks encounters that most of us would gladly avoid. The book is good when describing creatures that are patently murderous—sharks, crocodiles, bears—but even better when recounting the hazards of those regarded as cuddly and benign . . . The author clearly adores the fearsome creatures he corrals here.” —Brad Leithouser, The Wall Street Journal [on The Book of Deadly Animals]
"This is first-rate, unsentimental writing about nature and about the ways that human beings try to cope with the most terrible cruelties that nature offers up." —The New York Times [on The Red Hourglass]
"Gordon Grice's essays hold the reader in their spell, and then carry him beyond the usual romance of the insect and animal world to something darker and far more interesting: Nature's Gothic. The Red Hourglass marks the debut of a fresh, strange, and wonderful new voice in American nature writing." —Michael Pollan, author of The Omnivore's Dilemma
“If Cormac McCarthy turned his hand to nature writing, the results might sound something like Grice.” —Mark Dery, True/Slant
Selected Works
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