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Five-Finger Exercise with Doctors and Insects

by
October 2003, no. 255

A Few Short Notes on Tropical Butterflies by John Murray

Viking, $29.95 pb, 274 pp

Five-Finger Exercise with Doctors and Insects

by
October 2003, no. 255

Am I alone in becoming suspicious when a writer’s previous profession is the focus of a publicist’s blurb? To me, it smacks of desperation. ‘I can’t think of anything to say about this writing,’ such an approach confesses, ‘but let me tell you about the writer’s stellar career as a motor mechanic, or their prowess in tae kwon do, or their interest in growing orchids.’ Call me an old New Critic, but I prefer to read the work and to let the author lurk darkly in the background.

A Few Short Notes on Tropical Butterflies

A Few Short Notes on Tropical Butterflies

by John Murray

Viking, $29.95 pb, 274 pp

From the New Issue