Yesterday John Sharp announced on Facebook that the book he's been sloooooowly putting together for a number of years is FINALLY going to go to print. He says he plans to have copies for sale at the various shows this winter (DSC, SCI, etc). I, for one, can't wait to see it. The title is Facing Down Fear.
I look forward to this book for a lot of reasons. Like many of us here I am fascinated by the hunting of dangerous game. To compare and contrast, I recently bought Facing the Charge: African Dangerous Game, by Michael Miller. This book was written by an American who has gone on a bunch of safaris. Sixty- or seventy-some safaris, apparently. Out of this experience, which is rightly considered quite a lot of hunting, he has written a book which purports to be about hunting dangerous game. And it's a lovely book, really well designed, with good photography and a lot of personal experiences and incidental knowledge written up in it. And one gets the impression that the author has done some really good hunting, and has truly faced dangerous game down and won, which is nothing to be taken lightly. I expect I'd enjoy hunting with Miller, and talking with him over a campfire as the African sunset fades into black. But if you want to read about hunting dangerous game, well, it falls well short of the mark. It's terribly over-written (think "Capstick" on metaphoric steroids, if you like), and when you get down to it, there are only a half-dozen DG hunting incidents covered in the entire book... and it's a thin thing, just north of 150 pages, large type and double spaced, after you subtract the various forewords, introductions, afterwords, and acknowledgements written to endorse it.
This is not the sort of book we can expect John Sharp's to be.
When I hunted buffalo in Zimbabwe with John in 2015 we spent a lot of time talking about books: primarily his book, which he gave me to understand was a long way from being finished at that time. Apparently, something lit a fire under him to get it done sooner than he thought! I sincerely hope that this is not the signal that he's going to retire, for I really want to hunt with him at least one more time before he hangs his 470 Rigby double up for the last time. We also discussed at quite some length the idea I have for a dangerous game book, one which will carry on the discussion of target anatomy and physiology I started with my how-to-kill-bad-guys book already in print (the Tactical Anatomy Instructor Manual, 2006), not that the idea of such a book has any credit compared to what I believe John's book will be, but it served as a focus for our discussion.
As it happens, his book's title, and the subject matter--facing down the fear of the massive beast that is about to try to destroy your very existence--ties in with the work I've been doing in law enforcement for the past couple of decades. Standing up to imminent threat of death, and violent, painful death at that, is something that fascinates and terrifies us. Unlike the horror-film junkies, who seek the harmless thrill of celluloid gore without risking anything more than the loss of fifteen or twenty bucks, the men (and a few women) who face down the very reasonable fear of lion, leopard, buffalo, rhino, and elephant, not to mention bear, tiger, and others to the point where they willingly engage with the beasts at bad-breath distance court very real danger of losing their lives and limbs in these self-defining encounters. Why we do it, how we do it, and the elemental thoughts and emotions of hunting dangerous game are questions that speak to the deepest nature of Homo sapiens, Man the hunter.
This is much of what we talked about around those mopane campfires two years ago. During the course of those discussions John shared a lot of stories with me, as I'm sure he does with almost all of his hunters. Because we delved into some areas that are not common knowledge, he shared details of some incidents with me that he said have only been discussed with a handful of people, and I assured him I would keep those items to myself until such time as he makes them public knowledge.
But I will say this one thing, and I am not betraying a confidence by doing so: by his accounting, John has faced down more charges from buffalo alone than most professional hunters have faced from all of the Big Five combined. Add to that his extensive experience hunting lion, elephant, and leopard, and the totals become incredible. Out of that crucible a singular character has been forged that is unlike any I have ever known. I consider it an honor beyond price that he chooses to call me his friend.
But personal considerations aside: that such a wealth of dangerous game hunting experience is being shared with the rest of us in this book is a truly marvellous thing. So many of the best African hunters never got around to writing of their lives and experience, and many of those who did weren't really up to the task. We have a handful--Bell, Taylor, Selous, to name a few--who did, but there should have been a lot more. Sadly, most of them passed from this world before they ever got around to writing that book they'd been mulling over for years.
I don't know if John Sharp is a great writer, or only a good one. I guess we'll know soon enough. But I sincerely hope he has a good editor, because his story deserves it. It should be a cracking good read. Facing Down Fear promises to be the dangerous game hunting book we have all been hoping for. Watch for it.
