Facing the Hunter: Reflections on a Misunderstood Way of Life by David Adams Richards (National Post Jan 6, 2012) Reviewed by A.J. Somerset

David Adams Richards is the second Canadian novelist to publish an apologia for hunting in just two years, following David Carpenter’s excellent A Hunter’s Confession — although to call Facing the Hunter an apologia is not entirely accurate. Carpenter’s book revolves around his ambivalence toward hunting, the simultaneous satisfaction and regret felt by many hunters. Richards shares that ambivalence — “I loved the hunt,” he admits, “but I never thrilled at the killing” — but he makes no apologies here. He is defiant.

And he does not take long to draw his line in the pine needles: His prologue begins: “ ‘Progressive’ is such a damnable word.” On one side of that line lie city dwellers, environmentalists, lawmakers, rich people, trophy hunters, back-to-the-landers and political progressives; on the other, hunters, people with deep rural roots and Maritimers, all of whom can be lumped together under the general heading of Persecuted Third-Class Citizens. As arguments go, it is not precisely nuanced.

To be fair, the general view of hunters is equally cartoonish. Everyone knows that hunters are dangerous (and often drunk) men who go about unshaven, armed and dressed in camo, and who like to kill things: in short, rednecks. Richards’ attempt to do away with those stereotypes and to paint a truer picture of hunters and hunting is laudable and, for the most part, successful. But with predictable regularity, Richards turns away from the hunt and toward his prejudices.

Everything rural is good: Farming does not convert wildlife habitat into empty fields, no one ever drained a wetland for the sake of another field and farm runoff never hurt our water quality. Everything urban is bad; indeed, the indefensible in hunting — trophy hunting, hubristic excesses and overkill — is the work of urban hunters. All ills owe to “urban culture,” “urban ideas” and “urban sentiment.” Herein is a drinking game: Down a shot for each repetition, and you will soon be plastered. But you will be no closer to understanding, for Richards does not explore the ideas with which he takes issue. He simply writes them off as “urban” and moves on.

It comes down to a question of intent. If hunting is a “misunderstood way of life” — and it is hard to disagree with that contention — then what is this book trying to do? Is Richards pleading his case, arguing for understanding? Or is he preaching to the choir, pitching his book to hunters — the equivalent, more or less, of running to his room and slamming the door, shouting that no one understands him?

That opinion on hunting divides at the city limits is undeniable. In a Toronto dog park, someone will gush, “What a gorgeous dog”; in Clinton, Ont., the follow-up is, “Is she a hunter?” It is equally true that restricting access to Crown land is an urban imposition on local residents; Richards’ complaints about urban concerns will not seem out of place in, say, Wawa. But complaining about urban attitudes will hardly change them. And opinion, in a city, is hardly monolithic. It seems not to have occurred to Richards that many hunters now live in cities, and think for themselves.

These blind spots are unfortunate, because Richards displays a deep experience of the woods and of hunting; if his terminology is sometimes suspect (.306 for .30-06, a copy editor’s error), the substance is not. He writes with easy authority of deer, moose (an animal he clearly loves), grouse (which, in the local vernacular, he calls partridge) and ducks, and leavens the mix with ghost stories and humour. His greatest interest clearly lies in big game, especially moose, and he is adamant of the hunter’s obligation to make a clean shot and follow up. He is against trophy hunting (as is Carpenter in A Hunter’s Confession), but he also accepts the satisfaction in taking a fine animal. In short, his attitudes are in line with the great mass of Canadian hunters.

“In the woods,” he writes perceptively, “you suddenly become the chief law-giver to yourself” — and it is true. No one is watching, and the chance of encountering a conservation officer is slight. But it is not the threat of the CO that guides you so much as your own conscience. Ethics, hunters like to say, lie in what you do when nobody is watching.

Aldo Leopold, who wrote A Sand County Almanac, one of the clearest expressions of a hunter’s ethic, says that same thing when he observes that a hunter “has no gallery to applaud or disapprove of his conduct. Whatever his acts, they are dictated by his own conscience, rather than a mob of onlookers.”

Yet to Leopold, the value of this thought is that to confront choices and to choose wisely when no one is watching makes us more moral. And here again the chip on David Adams Richards’ shoulder occludes his vision. To Leopold, becoming the chief law-giver to oneself imposes a moral imperative that gives the hunt value; to Richards, it is the launching point for a bafflingly vague and ill-considered essay against regulation, including the long-gun registry.

Ultimately, this book will please those predisposed to agree. For a novelist of David Adams Richards’ reputation to take up their defence should give hunters comfort, and those sympathetic to his views will find much to love here. But the book’s hostility toward those it might otherwise persuade is unlikely to win them over.

• A.J. Somerset, the author of Combat Camera, has written for outdoor magazines across North America.

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I just finished A Hunters Confession by David Carpenter. Will have to add this one to ever growing book pile. Thanks.