Drayson, Nicholas 1954-

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DRAYSON, Nicholas 1954-

PERSONAL: Born 1954, in England; immigrated to Australia, 1982. Education: University of New South Wales, B.S., M.S., Ph.D.

ADDRESSES: Agent—c/o Author Mail, W. W. Norton & Co., 500 Fifth Ave., New York, NY 10110-0017.

CAREER: Writer, naturalist, and house painter. Former curator at Australian National Museum, Canberra, Australia.

WRITINGS:

Wildlife: Australia's Flora and Fauna Gently Observed, illustrated by Bruce Goold, Collins (Sydney, Australia), 1988.

Confessing a Murder, W. W. Norton (New York, NY), 2002.

Columnist for Good Weekend and Australian Women's Weekly. Contributor to periodicals, including Australian Geographic.

SIDELIGHTS: Nicholas Drayson's first book is a naturalist's observation of his adopted home of Australia. Drayson was living in Kenya in 1998 and 1999 when he wrote his second, a novel titled Confessing a Murder, which Booklist's Michael Spinella commented "juxtaposes the dark nature of humanity with the exciting discoveries made about nature and the world."

Drayson begins Confessing a Murder by describing a manuscript that was found in Holland in 1988, the author of which becomes the narrator of the story. The narrator describes his life in England from a South Seas island that is threatened by volcanic activity. He first left England for Australia, where he became involved in trade, then as his financial success permitted, he traveled to the more remote areas in the Java Sea. He is a collector of beetles, a fascination he shared with his close school friend, Charles Darwin. The manuscript relates that after he shared his theory of biological evolution with Darwin and Wallace, who barely knew each other, they each raced to publish it as their own.

Mick Imlah wrote in the Times Literary Supplement that "the best things in the book, and they form a large part of it, are its descriptions of the plants, insects, and animals of the island's creation, one parallel to, but separate from, that of our knowledge.... There is something like poetry, or philosophy made animate, in the more remarkable of the invented forms."

The island is to the narrator what the Galapagos were to Darwin, filled with strange and unusual plants and peculiar animals, including beetles whose males and females breed without meeting and a small frog, the male of which is almost whollcy comprised of testicles. The narrator is a Robinson Crusoe of sorts, exploring the island with a young assistant. His ultimate goal is to find the Golden Scarab beetle, and as he searches, he names and classifies all the forms of life he discovers, knowing that he will never receive credit for his work.

Imlah wrote, "Ignorant and incurious of his origins, parentless, childless, alone, barren, old, homosexual; his work stolen from him, his world doomed by the volcano at its heart, his story and experience folding into nothing, he is multiply denied posterity. Except, of course, for this fluky, fictional survival."

Lewis Wolfe reviewed the novel for Sydney Scope online, saying that the narrator "is arrogant and not altogether likeable at times, but engagingly brilliant and possessed of a flowing, personal style." About Drayson, he wrote that he "has a scientific mind but also a keen eye for beauty and the many metaphors within nature itself."

A Kirkus Reviews contributor called Confessing a Murder "an intelligent, gripping, and vivid adventure: Drayson writes in an exceptionally self-assured tone that perfectly captures the spirit of the nineteenth century."