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For Want of Wings: A Bird with Teeth and a Dinosaur in the Family
In 1872, a young graduate of Yale University named Thomas Russell unearthed the bones of an 83,000,000-year-old dinosaur in western Kansas. The rare fossil, an avian dinosaur with teeth and flightless wings, proved that birds evolved from reptiles. More than a century later, Russell’s great-granddaughter set out to retrace her ancestor’s forgotten expedition. Part detective history, part memoir, For Want of Wings is Jill Hunting’s captivating account of her journey into prehistory, national history, and family history.
In her quest to piece together fragments of her family’s past, Hunting ends up crisscrossing the United States, from California to Connecticut. On her first trip across the Colorado Rockies to the fossil bed site near Russell Springs, Kansas, Hunting brings along her then twenty-six-year-old daughter. When the book opens, mother and daughter are both at crossroads, each seeking to understand the impact of personal decisions on the landscape of her life.
As Hunting ventures forward, she encounters unexpected resources, such as ten-year-old triplets who converse with her about dinosaurs and a Connecticut museum where portraits of her ancestors hang on the walls. Through lively descriptions of these visits, Hunting advances a view of history as nonlinear and full of unlikely coincidences.
For Want of Wings is also the carefully researched story of the least known of Yale’s four expeditions into the American West, led by eminent paleontologist O. C. Marsh; the friendship between Russell’s father and abolitionist John Brown; a portrait of a mother and daughter evolving in self-understanding; and an inquiry into matters of race in American history and the author’s own family. In the end, all these pieces converge, like fragments of a fossil, to form an exquisitely patterned work of historical exploration.
In her quest to piece together fragments of her family’s past, Hunting ends up crisscrossing the United States, from California to Connecticut. On her first trip across the Colorado Rockies to the fossil bed site near Russell Springs, Kansas, Hunting brings along her then twenty-six-year-old daughter. When the book opens, mother and daughter are both at crossroads, each seeking to understand the impact of personal decisions on the landscape of her life.
As Hunting ventures forward, she encounters unexpected resources, such as ten-year-old triplets who converse with her about dinosaurs and a Connecticut museum where portraits of her ancestors hang on the walls. Through lively descriptions of these visits, Hunting advances a view of history as nonlinear and full of unlikely coincidences.
For Want of Wings is also the carefully researched story of the least known of Yale’s four expeditions into the American West, led by eminent paleontologist O. C. Marsh; the friendship between Russell’s father and abolitionist John Brown; a portrait of a mother and daughter evolving in self-understanding; and an inquiry into matters of race in American history and the author’s own family. In the end, all these pieces converge, like fragments of a fossil, to form an exquisitely patterned work of historical exploration.
256 pages, Paperback
Published February 8, 2022
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About the author
Jill Hunting
7 books4 followersReleased February 2022 by the University of Oklahoma Press: A BIRD WITH TEETH AND A DINOSAUR IN THE FAMILY by Jill Hunting
In 1872, a young graduate of Yale University named Thomas Russell unearthed the bones of an 83,000,000-year-old dinosaur in western Kansas. The rare fossil, an avian dinosaur with teeth and flightless wings, proved that birds evolved from reptiles. More than a century later, Russell’s great-granddaughter set out to retrace her ancestor’s forgotten expedition. Part detective history, part memoir, FOR WANT OF WINGS is Jill’s captivating account of her journey into prehistory, national history, and family history.
A former food and wine editor, Jill is the editor of the STONE EDGE FARM COOKBOOK, winner of the Book of the Year and Best First Cookbook/Julia Child awards from the International Association of Culinary Professionals. She is the author of FINDING PETE: REDISCOVERING THE BROTHER I LOST IN VIETNAM, the story of Jill's investigation into her brother's death in Vietnam in 1965. Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's Vietnam War series for PBS featured Pete in episode 2.
In 1872, a young graduate of Yale University named Thomas Russell unearthed the bones of an 83,000,000-year-old dinosaur in western Kansas. The rare fossil, an avian dinosaur with teeth and flightless wings, proved that birds evolved from reptiles. More than a century later, Russell’s great-granddaughter set out to retrace her ancestor’s forgotten expedition. Part detective history, part memoir, FOR WANT OF WINGS is Jill’s captivating account of her journey into prehistory, national history, and family history.
A former food and wine editor, Jill is the editor of the STONE EDGE FARM COOKBOOK, winner of the Book of the Year and Best First Cookbook/Julia Child awards from the International Association of Culinary Professionals. She is the author of FINDING PETE: REDISCOVERING THE BROTHER I LOST IN VIETNAM, the story of Jill's investigation into her brother's death in Vietnam in 1965. Ken Burns and Lynn Novick's Vietnam War series for PBS featured Pete in episode 2.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
March 8, 2022
“For Want of Wings” is an extraordinary book by Jill Hunting, a gifted writer, who stitches together a melange of stories and personal reflections.
She takes her readers into the world of dinosaurs and their bones, and those who hunt for them, and around this fascinating tale of her great grandfather, Tom Russell, adds a rich and fabled American New England family history, the founding of Yale University, the sadness of slavery, John Brown and abolitionists, the wilds of the Kansas frontier … and then to Vietnam and a lost brother … to the immediate times in which we live, with global warming, and a daughter who founded 350.org.
The author entertains the reader with lots of research, and just downright Sherlock Holmes sleuthing, to discover the story of a young man’s discovery of a missing link in the wilds of Kansas, 1872; be prepared to meet: “Hesperornis regalis,” i.e. “regal western bird,” a bird with teeth.
The author succeeds beautifully, because it’s a daunting task to tell a series of interconnected (not always obvious) stories, weaving them around the central tale of the book.
Where the danger lurks of uneven stitching, where things never quite seem to fit, Jill Hunting carefully brings together a tale of many cities and times, with adventures, tears, victories, memorable characters, and quotable quotes. The author shows us how this kind of writing is done.
In addition to this book, and an earlier book about her brother, “Finding Pete,” Jill Hunting has been a food and wine writer and editor - this book, as well as her earlier book about Pete, reminds me (to shift metaphors) of how a skillful chef takes a disparate group of ingredients and seasonings, and in perfect balance, puts them all together in such a happy fashion that each is better in flavor and texture because of all the others, providing a dining experience to be savored with quiet notes of “hmm good” and grateful nods of the head, and then talked about in wonderment as to how the chef did it.
“For Want of Wings,” a marvelous book for personal reading: a source of pleasure and delight, as all such good writers aim to give.
I recommend the book, as well, for book clubs. There’s so much here to relish, to ponder, with a wealth of information so readably presented, bound to stimulate lots of solid conversation.
Nothing like a look at the past, to gain a fresh perspective on the present moment in which we live, and the life we are all trying to lead and understand.
A worthy addition to anyone’s library!
She takes her readers into the world of dinosaurs and their bones, and those who hunt for them, and around this fascinating tale of her great grandfather, Tom Russell, adds a rich and fabled American New England family history, the founding of Yale University, the sadness of slavery, John Brown and abolitionists, the wilds of the Kansas frontier … and then to Vietnam and a lost brother … to the immediate times in which we live, with global warming, and a daughter who founded 350.org.
The author entertains the reader with lots of research, and just downright Sherlock Holmes sleuthing, to discover the story of a young man’s discovery of a missing link in the wilds of Kansas, 1872; be prepared to meet: “Hesperornis regalis,” i.e. “regal western bird,” a bird with teeth.
The author succeeds beautifully, because it’s a daunting task to tell a series of interconnected (not always obvious) stories, weaving them around the central tale of the book.
Where the danger lurks of uneven stitching, where things never quite seem to fit, Jill Hunting carefully brings together a tale of many cities and times, with adventures, tears, victories, memorable characters, and quotable quotes. The author shows us how this kind of writing is done.
In addition to this book, and an earlier book about her brother, “Finding Pete,” Jill Hunting has been a food and wine writer and editor - this book, as well as her earlier book about Pete, reminds me (to shift metaphors) of how a skillful chef takes a disparate group of ingredients and seasonings, and in perfect balance, puts them all together in such a happy fashion that each is better in flavor and texture because of all the others, providing a dining experience to be savored with quiet notes of “hmm good” and grateful nods of the head, and then talked about in wonderment as to how the chef did it.
“For Want of Wings,” a marvelous book for personal reading: a source of pleasure and delight, as all such good writers aim to give.
I recommend the book, as well, for book clubs. There’s so much here to relish, to ponder, with a wealth of information so readably presented, bound to stimulate lots of solid conversation.
Nothing like a look at the past, to gain a fresh perspective on the present moment in which we live, and the life we are all trying to lead and understand.
A worthy addition to anyone’s library!
June 27, 2022
Overall, I enjoyed the book. Early on, a little heavy on some details of family that I think only family are interested in. But other info about 1872 trip of authors great grandfather, Thomas H. Russell, with fossil collector O. C. Marsh, his personal discovery of an avian dinosaur, current day Kansas fossil experts, about Kansas coming in as a non slave state and the New England connection to that outcome, some interesting John Brown tidbits, western & indigenous peoples US history. Second book I've read that tells me I must make a trip to The Peabody Museum of Natural history on the Yale Campus in New Haven, CT.
June 6, 2022
An interesting story: The author researches the 1872 Yale expedition, least well known of paleontologist O. C. Marsh's four Western expeditions, on which Hunting's great-grandfather Thomas Russell found an important fossil that links dinosaurs with birds. There is family history and there are current travels, and the narrative doesn't always hang together very well, but all its parts are worthwhile. I especially liked learning about Hunting's research: An expert helps her determine, for example, where a photo of the 1872 group was taken, by tracing the carpet in the photo to a particular Denver photographer's studio - fascinating!
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews