James Kilgo (1941–2002)

INHERITANCE OF HORSES, by James Kilgo.
This 1994 book is the third essay collection I've read by the late James Kilgo, who is perhaps best known for his first one, DEEP ENOUGH FOR IVORYBILLS. That book was primarily about his hunting, fishing and birding experiences both as a boy and as a man. And there is more of that here too. "According to Hemingway" tells of a deep sea fishing trip in the Caribbean and remembering what Hemingway wrote about his time doing the same. "Indian Givers" talks more of hunting, but also about looking for arrowheads and other pieces of history, again, as both boy and man. "A Gift from the Bear" is about camping trips to Yellowstone with his son, John, hoping to sight a grizzly bear, and also to fish. But the two cornerstone pieces of this collection, at least in my estimation, are the ones about his grandfathers. "Taken by Storm" is about his maternal grandfather, Bob "Doc" Lawton, who was bedridden for much of his life from various illnesses and ailments, and yet continued to try to make the most of his life. Doc figures largely too in the title piece, last in the collection, "Inheritance of Horses." In it, Kilgo tries valiantly to unravel the puzzle that was his paternal grandfather and namesake, Jim Kilgo, who died when the author was very young. A complex riddle of a man, 'Papa' continued to loom large in Kilgo's imagination for the rest of his life. Kilgo's two grandfathers were close friends their whole lives. Indeed, the letters between the two men, which Kilgo studies almost religiously, show a closeness that was rare and mysterious, especially for the times in which they were written, the 1920s and 30s. Kilgo sees a disciple-like relationship in Papa's love and respect for a near Christ-like Doc, but also speculates on the possibility of a repressed homosexual attraction. He also wonders about an alleged affair that Papa engaged in while still a relatively young man that resulted in a polite and formal separate bedroom arrangement between him and his wife for the rest of their marriage.

Kilgo's writings are unique in the way he looks closely at his natural surroundings, using his hunting and fishing trips to make sense of what we are all here for. His observations touch on the deeply personal things we all think about but rarely speak of - nature, family, life and death. Kilgo died a dozen years ago from cancer. But his words live on in these essays. He was a damn fine writer. My highest recommendation.… (plus d'informations)

James Kilgo is not a famous author, except maybe down south, where he was an English Professor at the University of Georgia, in Athens, for thirty years. I happened across his book, DEEP ENOUGH FOR IVORYBILLS a couple months ago in a thrift shop, read it and loved it, even though it's largely about hunting and fishing. I am not an outdoorsy type, but Kilgo has a way of making those subjects, dear to his own heart, branch out to encompass larger and more important subjects, like life itself and what are we here for.

So I wanted to read more Kilgo, and now I have. This book, COLORS OF AFRICA, may be even better the IVORYBILLS. It certainly has an added poignancy, knowing that Kilgo died very soon after he finished writing the book, and he obviously knew this would be his last book. COLORS OF AFRICA is another book about hunting, but this time it's about how he fulfilled a life-long dream of going to Africa, as an observer and photographer on a three-week safari in Zambia with a big game-hunter acquaintance. Kilgo had thought his own hunting days were behind him, but when the hunter offers him a chance to shoot a Kudu, he decides differently.

Kilgo keeps a record of his time in beautiful history-laden Luangwa River valley and all the various animal trophies his host bags, as well as his own bird watching and that stalking and shooting of the Kudu (a large antelope). But he also weaves in a lot of reading and research about Africa, citing passages from the books and journals of Dr. Livingstone, references to Burton and Speke, as well as a more modern African scholar, Stuart Marks. But Hemingway keeps coming up here too, with frequent quotes from THE GREEN HILLS OF AFRICA, a book that Kilgo first read and fell in love with during his high school years. He also mentions the film, MOUNTAINS OF THE MOON, which dramatized the explorations and competitions of Burton and Speke. It is a film I too remember vividly, making me wish all over again that I could have known Kilgo and talked with him about books - his and others too.

Perhaps what makes Kilgo's books so readable and fascinating is the constant struggle in his own mind and heart about hunting and killing, but his enormous respect for nature and animals comes through loud and clear. This was a complicated guy, who came from a long family tradition of hunting and fishing and spending time in the outdoors, in the Carolina and Georgia swamps and woods mostly. But he also loved literature and thought deeply about the many questions that literature raises. About life, death, and what is our purpose here on earth. Perhaps one of the most poignant parts of the book, that stays with me, is a moment he has about two weeks into his African adventure. One night he is lying awake in a roofless blind in the jungle waiting for a lion to approach the bait - a rotting buffalo quarter - they've hung in a tree. And a huge flock of vultures begins to circle above the blind and land in front of it to feast on the bait. Watching these enormous carrion birds suddenly caused him to remember with a start that he had cancer. But it was the first time he had thought of it since he got to Africa. That's how absorbed he was in this once-in-a-lifetime chance adventure.

This is a book filled with history, literature, natural wonders and personal memories. And the kind of wisdom that perhaps only comes when one knows he is nearing the end of things. Kilgo made the most of it, of all of it. Jim Kilgo died in December 2002. COLORS OF AFRICA was published the following spring. It's a beautiful book, Jim. Thank you. Highly recommended.… (plus d'informations)

I'd never heard of James Kilgo or this book, DEEP ENOUGH FOR IVORYBILLS, when I ran across it at the local thrift shop. Although this book, a hardcover first edition, was published in 1988, it looked brand new. I wouldn't normally read a book that, per its cover blurb, is about "a hunter's joyful reunion with the woods and waters of his home country," but when I also read on the back cover flap that Kilgo was an English professor at the University of Georgia, my interest was piqued. The price was right, so I brought it home.

I'm so glad I did, because James Kilgo is a writer with great talent, and, even writing about hunting and fishing in the swamplands, river bottoms and lakes and streams of his beloved home state of South Carolina, he had me from the first line of the first essay, about crossing the Big Pee Dee River. Kilgo writes with skill and sensitivity of his introduction to hunting as a boy, going into the Carolina woods with his father, carrying his grandfather's gun. And of his numerous hunting expedtions with friends into the swampy river bottoms with friends over the years. His feelings about killing are mixed; although he enjoys the camaraderie of deer camp and the "songfeasts" around the fire that follow the kill, he also feels some guilt and confusion, particularly when he returns home to his wife, who does not share his passion for the hunt.

"But as a college professor who taught Sunday school and coached Little League baseball in a town [Athens, GA] where none of my people had ever lived, I could appeal to nothing that might account for a big, rank buck folded into the back of the family station wagon."

Nevertheless, the pull of the wilderness keeps him going back, to hunt birds, pigs and deer; and to fish the lakes and streams. Over the years he initiates his own son to the same pleasures, and watches as his hunting companions divorce, change careers, and, yes, die. All of which give Kilgo reason to meditate on his life and to delve into the history of his own family in the back country of the Carolinas. He thinks more than once about Faulkner's classic novella, THE BEAR, which made me remember reading that slim volume decades back in grad school.

I liked this book so much that I wanted to call or email the author to tell him so. Sadly, I learned that Kilgo succumbed to cancer a dozen years ago. I was still thinking about that when I finished the book last night. Gone for that many years, and yet here I was reading his words in this beautiful little book. Literature really does bestow a kind of immortality on its writers. Kilgo wrote a few other books. I think I'll try to find them, because I was simply delighted by this one. Hunters who think about what they are doing would certainly like this book. But I think anyone who enjoys good writing would like it. I did, most emphatically. Highly recommended.… (plus d'informations)

Hart Bonner is the son of a formerly prosperous plantation owner. Jennie Grant is his cousin's biracial cook. In South Carolina in the early 1900s, she is considered a "Negro" and it is a felony for a white man to have "relations" with her. She and Hart carry on a secret affair for years though. The strain of the secret and outside influences take their toll on the relationship and things come to a head in 1918.

White man, black woman, South Carolina, 1918. Can you say trouble? I rarely read synopses of books if someone recommends them to me, so I didn't know what I was getting into. When I figured out that this was the background of the story, my reading slowed to a crawl.

It wasn't that the writing was bad or anything. I was just afraid to become attached to these characters when I knew that bad things had to be coming for them. In that place at that time, there would have been almost no limit to exactly how bad things could get. So I would read until I found myself caring for the characters, and then I would find something else to do. When I had gained a little distance again, I picked the book back up. This is not a good way for me to read and that's probably the biggest factor behind the three stars.

This was so much more than just the obvious story. Looking inside this relationship was interesting and heartbreaking in an entirely different way than I had expected. Jennie and Hart truly love each other, but the secret meetings, the constant hiding and being careful, the sneaking out of Jennie's house before dawn inevitably take their toll. Hart would just put their love out in the open but Jennie has more at stake and she begs him to leave things as they are. They fight and break up and come back together and love again and fight again in an endless struggle. What relationship could withstand that strain? In one scene, Jennie is sick in her cabin and Hart can't even go visit her. In talking with his cousin, the cousin says, "If you were married." Hart turns on him. "What do you mean, 'if you were married'? Do you think that if that was [your wife:] out there, you'd be one bit more distraught that I am right now?" What a horrible situation to find yourself in. You're the person with the most right to be at your loved one's side, but you're the last person the rules of society will allow to be there.

By the end of the book, Hart has acted in a selfless way that leaves Jennie feeling freer than she ever has. She's still a black woman living in South Carolina in 1918, but she feels like she just might have a few more choices than she did before. I was left wondering if I would ever have the courage to do something I didn't want in order to give a loved one more freedom. The answer is, it depends, but that's not what Hart's answer was.

If the setting or the synopsis or the conflicts appeal to you, go ahead and give this a try. I feel like I got a better understanding of how difficult life could be in such a prejudiced time and place.… (plus d'informations)