Rio San Pedro

by Henry Hollenbaugh

A curious novel, not quite a journal, not quite pure adventure fiction. Editor Jonathan Galassi said of it: "There is a wonderful sense of presence in this novel..."; Henry Hollenbaugh, who is... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1603860193
• ISBN13: 9781603860192
• Release Date: July 2007
• Publisher: Alondra Press
• Length: 255 Pages
• Weight: 0.70 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Going Deep Delivers Detail That Disarms/Enchants

The concept of authors using authentic detail to grab readers and convince them of a story's authenticity is nothing new. But while reading Henry Hollenbaugh's Rio San Pedro of an American alligator poacher in Guatemala in 1957, I realized that an authentic detail is one that goes beyond a fact garnered from a website or book. Rather, an authentic detail falls within the realm of imagination: the author drops himself so far into a scene that he can see every move. In the process, he happens to mention one tiny thing that convinces you he was there, whether figuratively or literally. "Beneath its green shroud the jungle floor, with its carpet of dead and rotting leaves, was beginning to shrivel into crackling dryness under the desiccating heat of the dry season. The last heavy rains of the season had fallen, and the sound of dripping water in the jungle had given way to the harsh, hoarse notes of the striped bittern and the vaquero, and the humming, thrumming mating call of the curassow." So begins Hollenbaugh's book, which is filled with the details -- of wildlife, social customs, terrain -- he accumulated during his crocodile-hunting years while working in Central America as an oil exploration surveyor. What's stunning, however, is his apparent appreciation for the uniqueness of his experiences, which if depicted with enough depth, would open a new world for readers. And he's right. "As our garfish roasted, the heat caused it mouth to gradually open wide." "With my rubber-coated bag strapped to my shoulders, carrying a few pounds of salt, a meager supply of food, my hammock, mosquito net, carbide lamp and rifle, I made my way to the lake, hacking my way through the all but invisible and impassable trail for two days." "Clearly discernible on the bottom were the old cast-iron kettles, used to boil chicle in, that the Chicle Development Company had thrown into the river here when it was departing Guatemala forever, after first drilling holes in the bottoms to make them unusable." Every time I opened the book, I teleported into this land of creeks, garfish for dinner and equipment to be cleaned and maintained. The narrator and his oarsman, Arquimedes, sleep in hammocks during the day and save the night for hunting, or "spotlighting," in which they use a carbide lamp to catch the black gleam of crocodile eyes. Along the way, the narrator tells story after story of his past hunting trips, the vagaries of the locals and the lore of the region. And so I followed the narrator as he took me through his days and thoughts while attempting to avoid the authorities, and at the same time, woo a local woman so he could make permanent the magical life he'd found in prowling "the still, black waters of the Rio San Pedro."