The Natural History of a Fantasy.
Growing up on the edge of the South African desert, Rob Nixon had a passion for birds, especially the endearingly gawky, flightless ostrich. Stumbling across a new ostrich rush in Arizona in the 1990s, Nixon felt compelled to investigate - and rediscovered mysteries of his own past.
At the heart of this book looms the dreambird of Rob Nixon's childhood, linking in one improbable, mythical frontier story, 1900s Paris fashion houses, Jewish refugees making feather fortunes in the South African desert, and the rustlers and hustlers of today's American West.
This is a mixture of social history and personal memoir that is erudite, whimsical, genuinely touching and really funny.
