Crashing Through and The Wild Trees 

By Kenny Brechner 

 Few people still believe that “children should be seen and not heard,” and even fewer that “children should be heard but not seen.” The first case is clearly not good thinking, and the second makes no sense if we apply it to children. Rather than just leave a phrase lying by the wayside, we might do well to try and apply it to the writing of narrative nonfiction. Let us come straight out and say it then: The successful narrative – or topical nonfiction – writer should be heard but not seen in his narrative.

One comes to feel that the greatest asset or liability of any topical nonfiction account is its author. A good author can make any topic interesting, and a poor author can spoil the most interesting topic. To consider our question, we’ll look at the recent books of two well-established authors, Richard Preston, known for his excellent The Hot Zone, and Robert Kurson, justly famed for Shadow Divers. Preston and Kurson’s new books are both great reads on interesting topics.

Preston’s new book, The Wild Trees, examines the Redwood Canopy in Northern California, as well as its discoverers, explorers, and of course, the canopy itself. Kurson’s Crashing Through is an account of the life of Mike May, a man who was blinded in a chemical accident at age three, and whose sight was ultimately restored at age 45. Both books are exceptionally well-written accounts of uncharted territory, featuring compelling people and fascinating science; both authors gained intimate access to their subjects and a solid command of the relevant science. There is only one major and substantive difference between these two narratives: in The Wild Trees, Preston, its author, literally enters the story as a character two-thirds of the way through the book; on the other hand, Kurson exemplifies the “heard but not seen” nonfiction narrator in his account.

The fact that there is an amazingly diverse forest canopy hundreds of feet in the air was unknown until recently, and Preston brings the lives and work of pioneering scientists Steve Sillett and Maire Antoine, along with amateur Redwood titan finder Michael Taylor, to life with a strong hand. The reader feels the pull of their tight-knit, intriguing, and exclusive world – and
Preston clearly does, too, entering the story to interview Sillett for a magazine piece. Shortly after, Preston is to be found slipping into Sillett’s garage to draw a diagram of Sillet’s specialized climbing ropes, and then training himself in the arborist climbing method used by Sillett. Subsequently, he impresses Sillett with his hard-won climbing expertise and his exploration of the forest canopy of Scotland, going on to become one of the team.

One is pleased that Preston had big experiences and made cool new friends, but the narrative tension goes right out of The Wild Trees once Preston ceases to be purely a narrator and simultaneously becomes a character. The effect is jarring on many levels. The reader’s suspension of disbelief, well-earned by Preston up until page 227, is abruptly lost. The reader quickly feels excluded from the story as well, suddenly recast as an outsider looking in from a deliberately obscure distance. Preston’s new role hopelessly compromises his narrative.
In Crashing Through, Kurson provides an intimate portrait of a remarkable man. May’s decision to have a corneal transplant in one eye was a curious one. The transplant was a new procedure with an unknown chance of success. Even if successful, the limited case histories of individuals who had gained sight after a lifetime of blindness suggested serious psychological perils, depression, exhaustion, and difficulty with interpretation. Furthermore, strong immune suppressants would need to be taken, making May vulnerable to cancer.

As a successful engineer and businessman, blind skiing champion, and builder of an eighty-foot ham radio tower, May was an important member of the blind community. He loved his life and felt that nothing was lacking, why take enormous risks for the chance to see? In the end May chose to chance the operation because it was an adventure, it was something he hadn’t done before. Wrestling with the decision forced May to consider deeply who he was, and May decided that he was above all an explorer, a risk taker. “Crashing though” is May’s term for overcoming obstacles, a practice he has been engaging in his entire life.

Crashing Through is at all times both intimate and tasteful. The detailed account of May’s first conjugal experience with his wife after gaining sight, for example, is at once highly detailed and extremely compelling. The reader can’t help but pause a moment and wonder how Kurson pulled that off, how anyone other than May could have written that section. Kurson’s narrative builds steadily, and ends strongly. The science component of Crashing Through, the neurological reasons for the crisis May encounters, his inability to interpret faces, or see unexpected changes in dimension, such as stairs and sidewalks, the mind-numbing weariness of sight for him, are fascinating. More importantly, May’s triumph over these obstacles, his “crashing though,” is truly inspiring.

There is a lot to be said for The Wild Trees, but its not the book it could have been had Kurson stayed the course with his narrative. The rewards of a narrative cannot be personal to their author. The Wild Trees is a worthwhile book, but Crashing Through is exceptional.