A gripping and otherwise brilliantly written story, marred for me by some really uncomfortable sexism and casually insensitive use of racial terms. I realize that the book is a product of its times, written in 1969. But endless references to the “girl ranger” and “female hysteria” are really jarring. (The men don’t always acquit themselves well, but their actions don’t seem to need to be explained with gender-based assumptions).
And while mentioning that a particular man is a native American might be fine in the first instance, continually calling him “the Indian” in the narrative was completely unnecessary and irrelevant.
I was teenager in 1969, and this is the culture I grew up in. In a way, it’s encouraging to be reminded of how far we have come as a society over the past 50 years. But why not do a quick edit and remove the gratuitous references so that this story can be appreciated for another 50 years? The events themselves are gripping, and the lessons about the difficulties of managing the human wildlife interface in our national parks are still relevant.
There are a number of other intriguing Jack Olson books in the audible catalog, some written in the 1980s so I would hope are much improved, but I am really hesitant to pay money to find out!