One with the Tiger: Sublime and Violent Encounters Between Man and Animal

In this engaging volume, essayist Church (The Guinness Book of Me) uses the story of David Villalobos’s 2012 jump into the Bronx Zoo’s tiger cage to launch a broader discussion on the connections people try to forge with animals—and the blurry line between humans and beasts. What compelled the man to risk injury or death and criminal prosecution? What thrill had Villalobos been seeking? As Church attempts to make sense of the event, he studies human interest in the behavior of beasts as well as human tendencies toward anger and violence. For example, Church was captivated in the 1970s by television series such as Grizzly Adams—about a mountaineer and his bear, Ben—and The Incredible Hulk, which he watched religiously. Church finds the dichotomy between “gentle soul, scientist” David Banner (Bruce Banner in the original comic) and the “damaged and dangerous” Hulk intensely fascinating. Another section on boxer Mike Tyson, who in a 1997 fight bit off a piece of Evander Holyfield’s ear, is also remarkable, speaking to the sport’s inherent savagery and human attraction to the spectacle. Readers expecting a narrow examination of Villalobos’s tiger encounter at the zoo will be rewarded instead with Church’s insightful exploration of human infatuation with nonhuman animals. (Nov.)