The Snake Charmer: A Life and Death in Pursuit of Knowledge

By Jamie James
272 pp. Hyperion, 2008 $24.95

Reviewed by Abbie Stillie

Most people react to snakes the same way they do to green olives, licorice and Woody Allen: They either love them or hate them. Joe Slowinski, one of America’s most daring and charismatic herpetologists, was clearly one of the former. In his book The Snake Charmer, Jamie James provides an intimate portrait of this fascinating man.

The book begins on a suspenseful note: In a remote Burmese village, Slowinski has just been bitten by the many-banded krait, one of the deadliest snakes in the world. Will he get medical help in time? Will he live or die?

Though the denouement is clear from the beginning, the book is still compelling. Slowinski was the Indiana Jones of biologists—handsome, hard-drinking and talented. He developed his love of snakes at an early age, growing up in Wisconsin and Kansas hunting rat snakes and rattlesnakes on rocky bluffs and riverbanks. Though his academic career had its highs and lows, by the time he set out on his expedition to find new snake species in Burma, he was one of the top herpetologists in the country.

The story of the ill-fated expedition, which was troubled from the start, due to the country’s corrupt dictatorship, bad weather, and tensions between members of the expeditionary team, takes up a third of the book. Despite their differences, the group pulled together when Slowinski was bitten by the krait, making a heroic 30-hour effort to save his life.

In the epilogue, James writes of the great sense of loss he feels for this man he never met. Though to a lesser degree, a reader of this book will feel the same: Joe Slowinski is the kind of guy you’d like to sit down and drink a beer with after a long slog through the jungle, the kind of guy who could even change your mind about hating snakes.