Wildflower: An Extraordinary Life and Untimely Death in Africa

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Overview

Wildflower is a compelling work of narrative nonfiction in which the shocking death of a dedicated environmentalist becomes a broader story of a beautiful, breathtaking country in peril.

In January 2006, Joan Root, a sixty-nine-year-old naturalist, Oscar-nominated wildlife filmmaker, and staunch conservationist, was murdered by two masked men armed with an AK-47 shortly after midnight in her bedroom on the shore of Kenya’s beautiful Lake Naivasha. Was it a random robbery gone bad, as the local police seemed to think, or was it a cold-blooded contract killing carried out at the behest of enemies Root had made in her efforts to protect Kenya’s wildlife? Veteran journalist Mark Seal set out ...

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More About This Book

Overview

Wildflower is a compelling work of narrative nonfiction in which the shocking death of a dedicated environmentalist becomes a broader story of a beautiful, breathtaking country in peril.

In January 2006, Joan Root, a sixty-nine-year-old naturalist, Oscar-nominated wildlife filmmaker, and staunch conservationist, was murdered by two masked men armed with an AK-47 shortly after midnight in her bedroom on the shore of Kenya’s beautiful Lake Naivasha. Was it a random robbery gone bad, as the local police seemed to think, or was it a cold-blooded contract killing carried out at the behest of enemies Root had made in her efforts to protect Kenya’s wildlife? Veteran journalist Mark Seal set out to investigate this gripping real-life murder mystery–and instead found an unforgettable story not only of a tragic death but of the remarkable life that preceded it.

With compassion and an unswerving regard for the truth, Seal lays bare the deeply moving, inspirational history of Joan Root, covering her early days in Kenya as a shy young woman with an almost uncanny ability to connect to animals; her whirlwind courtship with the dashing Alan Root, their marriage, and the twenty years of nonstop adventure, passionate romance, and groundbreaking wildlife filmmaking that followed, both in Africa and around the world; the shattering disintegration of the marriage and partnership; and Joan’s triumphant struggle to reinvent herself as the protector of her lakeshore community’s fragile ecosystem–a struggle that would lead to her death.

Wildflower is also the story of Kenya itself. A country blessed with unmatched beauty that is one of the last repositories of rare wildlife on the African continent, Kenya has also been scarred by decades of colonization and a culture of corruption fueled by the frequently competing agendas of conservationists and business interests. Joan Root dreamed of a bright future for Kenya and spent her life fighting with quiet heroism and courage to make that dream a reality. Her life ended too soon, but her legacy lives on.

Editorial Reviews

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Joan Root was English by heritage, African by birth, and a lover of Kenya, its animals, and its people. Her home on the banks of Lake Vainasha was a veritable Eden to a menagerie of recuperating and orphaned animals. A visitor once mistook for a waterbed Joan's pet hippo, Sally, who was napping in a corner of the room.

So shy that her only response to a scorpion's sting was a soft "oh," Joan became, through quiet determination, one of East Africa's most respected voices for conservation. With her former husband, Alan, she'd made some of the most celebrated wildlife films ever produced. When poachers and massive flower farms began to destroy the region's delicate ecosystem, she worked with the poachers rather than sending them to jail, hoping to instill a love of conservation in native Kenyans.

By the time a small group of African gunmen opened fire through the bars in her bedroom window, killing the 69-year-old Root, she'd lived at the lake for 25 years. Hers was a gentle but stalwart voice that spoke for patience and knowledge. Her death came from a lifetime of understanding animals better than people and forgetting that among living creatures on earth, one alone has the capacity for evil. Seal's biography is an illuminating yet troubling tribute. (Fall 2009 Selection)
Publishers Weekly

Vanity Fair contributing editor Seal expands on his August 2006 article for the magazine in this sweeping and atmospheric biography of the conservationist and wildlife filmmaker Joan Root, who was brutally murdered in her home on Lake Naivasha, Kenya, a region she was trying to save from poachers and environmental ruin. Intrigued by Root's suspicious death and cinematic life with husband and nature documentarian Alan Root, Seal mines Joan's diaries and writings to offer a lush love story set in the heyday of British colonialism in Nairobi, where amid the decadence and dilettantism, Alan fell in love with the lovely Joan Thorpe, an "Ingrid Bergman lookalike" and daughter of an English adventurer. Their partnership produced award-winning documentaries (their 1978 film on termite mounds, Mysterious Castles of Clay, was narrated by Orson Welles and nominated for an Oscar) and television specials. Their inability to have children was a source of constant sorrow for the couple, and despite the romance of their joint pursuits, their marriage unraveled. Seal's effort is a seamless story redolent with adventure, passion and heartbreak; its beauty nearly eclipses the tragedy of Root's untimely-and unsolved-death in 2006. Photos. (June)

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From The Critics

Seal, a contributing editor at Vanity Fair and a journalist for 34 years, expands on his portrait of British naturalist and filmmaker Joan Root, which appeared in the August 2006 issue of Vanity Fair following her brutal murder at her Kenyan farmhouse. Seal gives us the sad details up front and then leads us, gently and sensitively, through the story of this shy yet remarkable woman. The films she made with husband Alan Root became international hits, and one, Mysterious Castles of Clay, was nominated for an Academy Award in 1978. After her divorce, Joan Root became an ardent conservationist who fought poaching and illegal fishing on Lake Navaisha, a passion that may have led to her death. This is a great story built from many interviews of friends and family and from Root's extensive diaries and letters. What an adventure! What an example! Highly recommended. [See Prepub Alert, LJ2/1/09; film rights were sold to Julia Roberts.-Ed.]
—Margaret F. Dominy

Product Details

  • ISBN-13: 9781400067367
  • Publisher: Random House Publishing Group
  • Publication date: 5/26/2009
  • Pages: 232
  • Product dimensions: 6.40 (w) x 9.30 (h) x 1.10 (d)

Meet the Author

Mark Seal has been a journalist for more than thirty years. Currently a contributing editor at Vanity Fair, he has written for many major magazines and served as a collaborator on almost twenty nonfiction books. Although he has written thousands of stories, Seal says none has struck a chord with readers more than the story of the incredible life and brutal death of Joan Root, which he originally reported in the August 2006 issue of Vanity Fair. He lives in Aspen, Colorado.

Read an Excerpt

PREFACE

She always knew he would come back to her.
He would climb into his helicopter at first light one Nairobi morning and rise above the screaming madhouse of the city, tilting west over East Africa’s largest slum, and flying out into wonder: out over the Great Rift Valley, the cradle of civilization, a three- thousand- mile- long seam in the earth that stretches from Syria to Mozambique but is at its most glorious here in Kenya. As the floor of the world dropped away,
opening into endless sky and a breathtaking vista, he would follow this corridor straight back to her.

There were things she longed to tell him, things only he would understand.
Everything she’d been too shy and self- effacing to say before would now come pouring out, just as it had in all of the letters she had written him, letters she never sent:

A lifetime has passed since we split, and yet some memories of things we did together seem [as if they happened] only the other day. There is so much I would like to say and share with you—now I know I am not inferior to you.

She waited for him in her blue house beside the lake, which looked so perfect and placid from the air. But this was merely another extreme in a country where great beauty coexists with unimaginable brutality,
where the border between life and death is the thinnest of lines, where nothing is ever as it seems.

Now in contact with others, I realize how knowledgeable I am about the natural world. . . . People respect me nowadays. But the only love of my life is one of the few people I cannot communicate with, even as a friend.

She could leave all that pain behind as soon as he came back into her life. Flying over the mountains and dormant volcanoes that form a natural amphitheater around the lake, he would hover over the emeraldgreen water, taking in its wide, verdant, wildlife- infested expanse.

When you flew over and saw the blue house you were probably happy you didn’t live here anymore, but I am really such a different person, I hardly know myself. I have written you so many letters in my head but when I try to write I go to pieces.

She imagined him buzzing the house, as playfully as he always had,
then touching down on the grass landing strip and stepping out, as if returning from only a brief safari instead of half a lifetime. Then at last she would impress him with her independence and accomplishments and show him the abiding endurance of her love.

Finally, he did come back to her, flying in with the dawn on January
13, 2006. It was not, however, as she had dreamed for so long. He hadn’t come to reunite with the woman who had once been his wife,
partner, and best friend, the woman he’d left to live alone in Africa for sixteen years.

He had come to collect her remains.

Customer Reviews
Average Rating 4.5
( 23 )

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  • Posted April 28, 2010

    Couldn't Put It Down

    What an compelling read! I found myself engulfed in its pages, absorbing each and every detail. What an incredible woman, and the adventurous, albeit dangerous, life she lived. As I continued reading the story of this courageous, loving, dedicated, yet unassuming woman, I realized how much I wished that I'd had the privilege of meeting her. What she contributed, along with her former husband Alan, to the conservation of African wildlife shall be her legacy, long remembered. Ms. Root stood for what she believed, and battled til the death to defend it. I thank you Joan Root, from the bottom of my heart, for your selflessness and courage.

    I'm so grateful to Mark Seal for bringing this story to the rest of the world so that we may get a glimpse of what true love, honor and devotion really looks like.

    I would and have recommended this book to everyone! Oh, and don't forget the tissues.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted November 22, 2009

    True story

    Joan Root lived an unusual life. She was in a certain place at a certain time. The glimpse into that world is unique and contributed to my understanding of our world. Fascinating reading.

    1 out of 1 people found this review helpful.

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  • Posted January 17, 2011

    Just great!

    Mark Seal words make you see the story. You feel like you are in the hot air balloon or there setting up the equipment. This is a great story about a great woman.

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  • Posted October 29, 2009

    more from this reviewer

    Loved this Book!

    I love this book and Joan Root. It was fascinating to me and has increased (not decreased) my desire to visit Kenya.

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  • Posted October 19, 2009

    more from this reviewer

    The woman was exceptional, the writing less so...

    I got a picture of a woman, and of a marriage, and of a career filming animals in the wild, but it all felt pieced together and thinly researched. I felt a little of the voyeur, since she was such a beautiful woman and the author seemed more than a little in love with his subject. Perhaps she knew how difficult it was for people to get past her beauty to her accomplishments--she kept herself too tightly wrapped and private for this author to uncover. Still, I would rather have it than nothing at all.

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  • Posted August 29, 2009

    Great Book!

    I picked up this book because I knew Mark's dad. What a great woman Jane Root was. I am so glad Mark decided to write about her life. Great story of Africa and Jane Root's life.

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  • Posted August 9, 2009

    more from this reviewer

    Loved this book...totally inspirational.

    I'm not a huge non-fiction lover, but this book was wonderful. It held my attention and I fell in love with the life of the Roots. Joan's quiet manner and love for animals was inspiring. I've heard there may be a movie with Julia Roberts playing the lead. I love Roberts but Joan might be big shoes to fill for even Julia!

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  • Posted July 13, 2009

    Joan Root, a wonderful human.

    Anyone interested in this naturalist and beautiful woman should read this book. The author really did a good job about capturing Joan through her life and you really feel with her through her happy marriage, unhappy divorce, her struggle to save her home and the animals she loved and her wrongful death.

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  • Posted July 9, 2009

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    I Also Recommend:

    Joan Root is an amazing woman

    Mark Seal does an amazing job researching and writing a book about Joan Root, who by all rights should be as well-known as Jane Goodall and Dian Fossey. A story about Joan growning up and living in Africa as a naturalist and a film-maker.

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