Apologia is a story that will touch a nerve in all of us. It gives our vague sense of apprehension about brutality in the modern world a focus and, because the narrator actually does something on behalf of animals killed on the road, it gives us reason to believe that we can retrieve our dignity and a sense of purpose from the indifferent circumstances of everyday life.It has long been a habit of writer Barry Lopez to remove dead animals from the road. At the conclusion of a journey from Oregon to Indiana in 1989, he wrote Apologia to explore the moral and emotional upheaval he experienced dealing with the dead every day. On the highway he encountered dozens of animals -- raccoons, jackrabbits, porcupines, red foxes, sparrows, spotted skunks, owls, deer, gulls, badgers, field mice, garter snakes, barn swallows, pronghorn antelope, squirrels -- all victims of vehicular destruction. Stopping for each body he saw, he gently removed each one from the road."Darkness rises in the valleys of Idaho, " Lopez writes. "East of Grand View, south of the Snake River, nighthawks swoop the roads for gnats, silent on the wing as owls. On a descending curve I see two of them lying soft as clouds in the road. I turn around and come back."Lopez's eloquent prose is accompanied by Robin Eschner's dramatic black-and-white woodcuts. By turns violent, raw, and tender, they provide a stunning counterpoint to a reverent testimony.
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