A PLAGUE OF FROGS
By William Sounder
(Hyperion, 2000)
Category: Nonfiction for Grownups
A PLAGUE OF FROGS is the sort of nonfiction I like to write, and so it makes sense that I enjoyed reading it. I found myself analyzing the author’s storytelling choices throughout, carefully noting the mix of dramatic narrative and necessary scientific details; readability can be a tough balance to strike in a book like this, and I thought Mr. Sounder did a fine job of it.
The story—a look at the amphibian deformities crisis of the 1990s—has deep parallels to the honey bee decline story I share in THE HIVE DETECTIVES, due out next year. A scientist quoted in the book describes frogs as victims of a ‘convergence of environmental misfortune’, and the same could be said of honey bees. Let me just say here—and from personal experience—that when you are crafting a scientific thriller based on actual events, a ‘convergence of environmental misfortunes’ is not necessarily the most satisfying ending. Let’s face it: if you open a book with a mystery, your readers expect you to close with a solution to that mystery. Closing with a hazy “it could be lots of things” can be a tough, tough sell.
That said, we are talking about scientific mysteries here. Sometimes scientists manage to identify a single solution to a biological problem, but more often they uncover a slew of additional problems that need investigation. Such is the nature of science. By keeping his focus on the complexity of our environment and on the absolute wrongness of frogs with no hind legs—or with six hind legs or with hind legs that are so muddled they cannot function as legs—William Sounder created a wholly satisfying read. His book didn’t tell me the exact cause of the frog plague, but it did leave me thinking hard about our environment and how I fit into it.