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May 13, 2019
This informative and effortlessly readable work from poet Hamer is at once an educational primer on the titular species, and a sensitive look at his own life in the unlikely profession of molecatching. Long employed by homeowners and farmers in Llandaff, Wales, to help them eradicate animals generally regarded as pests, Hamer explains that he stopped after becoming “tired of hunting, trapping and killing.” However, he also shares a sense of gratitude for “a life that encourages a passion for nature, for its functional beauty and its violent brutal energy—even for its decay.” His writing conveys this passion with closely observed descriptions, such as of how moles dig tunnels, helped by their “dark, blue-black hair... soft and velvety brushes just as easily backwards, forwards and sideways.” Hamer also peppers the narrative with personal history, referencing experiences with homelessness, when like a mole he “perfected hiding skills and went underground,” surviving outdoors and avoiding contact with other people. Ultimately a reflection on humanity’s fraught but sustaining relationship with nature and on life’s “intertwining rhythmic cycles that thump along,” Hamer’s heartfelt work should have far wider appeal than its niche subject might suggest. With b/w illustrations.