Peter Matthiessen, 1927–2014
The author who roamed the wild
In his first nonfiction book, the naturalist and novelist Peter Matthiessen staked out the ground he would revisit throughout his life: the violence inflicted by mankind on the natural world. “Until man, the highest predator, evolved, the process of extinction was a slow one,” he wrote in 1959’s Wildlife in America. “No species but man, so far as is known, unaided by circumstance or climatic change, has ever extinguished another.” Matthiessen doubted humanity would ever change. “Man has been a murderer forever,” he wrote in his final novel, this year’s In Paradise, about a visit to a former Nazi death camp.
Born into a wealthy New York family, “Matthiessen was a man of many parts,” said The New York Times. Recruited by the CIA while at Yale University, he briefly served as a covert agent in France, where he co-founded The Paris Review literary magazine to cover his spying. After quitting the agency, Matthiessen turned to journalism, writing a series of reports on endangered species for Sports Illustrated, which became the basis for Wildlife in America. The book’s success allowed Matthiessen to venture farther afield. He trekked through South America for his 1961 book The Cloud Forest and hiked the Himalayas for 1978’s National Book Award–winning The Snow Leopard.
These travels also fueled his fiction, and 1965’s At Play in the Fields of the Lord—a tale of missionaries, mercenaries, and an elusive tribe in the Amazon rain forest—established him “as a major novelist,” said The Wall Street Journal. He won another National Book Award for his 2008 novel Shadow Country, about a Florida plantation owner. Writing a novel, Matthiessen explained, provided far more satisfaction than producing nonfiction. “In abandoning oneself to the free creation of something never beheld on Earth,” he said, “one feels almost delirious with a strange joy.”
Subscribe to The Week
Escape your echo chamber. Get the facts behind the news, plus analysis from multiple perspectives.
Sign up for The Week's Free Newsletters
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
From our morning news briefing to a weekly Good News Newsletter, get the best of The Week delivered directly to your inbox.
Sign up for Today's Best Articles in your inbox
A free daily email with the biggest news stories of the day – and the best features from TheWeek.com
Create an account with the same email registered to your subscription to unlock access.
-
Passenger: 'pleasingly off-kilter' ITV crime drama
The Week Recommends There's 'plenty to be feared' in this British murder mystery set in a quiet northern town
By Adrienne Wyper, The Week UK Published
-
Crossword: March 27, 2024
The Week's daily crossword
By The Week Staff Published
-
Sudoku hard: March 27, 2024
The Week's daily hard sudoku puzzle
By The Week Staff Published
-
Benjamin Zephaniah: trailblazing writer who 'took poetry everywhere'
Why Everyone's Talking About Remembering the 'radical' wordsmith's 'wit and sense of mischief'
By The Week UK Published
-
Shane MacGowan: the unruly former punk with a literary soul
Why Everyone's Talking About The Pogues frontman died aged 65
By The Week UK Published
-
'Euphoria' star Angus Cloud dies at 25
Speed Read
By Catherine Garcia Published
-
Legendary jazz and pop singer Tony Bennett dies at 96
Speed Read
By Devika Rao Published
-
Martin Amis: literary wunderkind who ‘blazed like a rocket’
feature Famed author, essayist and screenwriter died this week aged 73
By The Week Staff Published
-
Gordon Lightfoot, Canadian folk legend, is dead at 84
Speed Read
By Peter Weber Published
-
Barry Humphries obituary: cerebral satirist who created Dame Edna Everage
feature Actor and comedian was best known as the monstrous Melbourne housewife and Sir Les Patterson
By The Week Staff Published
-
Mary Quant obituary: pioneering designer who created the 1960s look
feature One of the most influential fashion designers of the 20th century remembered as the mother of the miniskirt
By The Week Staff Published