JORDAN, William 1944-

(William H. Jordan, III)

PERSONAL: Born 1944. Education: University of California, Ph.D. (entomology).

ADDRESSES: Home—Culver City, CA. Agent—c/o Author Mail, Houghton Mifflin Company, Trade Division, Adult Editorial, 8th Fl., 222 Berkeley St., Boston, MA 02116-3764.

CAREER: Entomologist and author. Contributor to audiotape Environmental Directions, Educational Communications (Los Angeles, CA), 1991.

WRITINGS:

Windowsill Ecology, Rodale Press (Emmaus, PA), 1977, also published as What's Eating Your House-plants? A Guide to Controlling Indoor Plant Pests, 1979.

Divorce among the Gulls: An Uncommon Look at Human Nature (essays), North Point Press (San Francisco, CA), 1991.

A Cat Named Darwin: How a Stray Cat Changed a Man into a Human Being (memoir), Houghton Mifflin Company (Boston, MA), 2002.

SIDELIGHTS: Although an entomologist by training, William Jordan has also written about animal and human behavior of non-insect species in such titles as Divorce among the Gulls: An Uncommon Look at Human Nature and A Cat Named Darwin: How a Stray Cat Changed a Man into a Human Being. The former is a collection of fourteen essays in which Jordan often describes animal behavior and then draws parallels between the human behavior and that of creatures such as gulls, gorillas, and Mediterranean fruit flies. Divorce among the Gulls attracted the attention of several reviewers, including one for Publishers Weekly, who called Jordan's prose "scintillating" and declared that the author has a "poet's ability to enchant" as well as a "naturalist's talent for opening our eyes" to the marvels of the animal kingdom. Expressing a different opinion was New York Times Book Review contributor Harry Middleton, who found Jordan's insights to be "ordinary and obvious," adding that Jordan "is at his best in essays like 'Alfalfa Communion,' where he remains within the scientific fold. In that essay he gives us an intriguing glimpse into the hibernation habits of Bathyplectes curculionis."

After adopting a stray orange cat that he found near his household garbage cans, Jordan, until then a dog lover, began a telling relationship with this creature, whom he named Darwin. In A Cat Named Darwin, which Booklist' critic Gilbert Taylor called a "a ruminative ramble" and an "affecting story," Jordan recounts the development of their relationship and provides scientific information about cats, both domestic and wild. Although Eva Lautemann of Library Journal found that when compared to similar works, Jordan's memoir "lacks [in] … warmth and readability," a Publishers Weekly reviewer appreciated Jordan's "self-deprecating style," which stops the narrative "from descending into mawkishness" when Darwin dies a lingering death from feline leukemia. The work is, according to a Kirkus Reviews contributor, "a perceptive and intelligent tribute to man's other best friend."

BIOGRAPHICAL AND CRITICAL SOURCES:

BOOKS

Jordan, William, A Cat Named Darwin: How a Stray Cat Changed a Man into a Human Being, Houghton Mifflin Company (Boston, MA), 2002.

PERIODICALS

Animals' Agenda, May, 1992, review of Divorce among the Gulls: An Uncommon Look at Human Nature, p. 45.

Booklist, November 1, 2002, Gilbert Taylor, review of A Cat Named Darwin, p. 464.

Kirkus Reviews, October 1, 2002, review of A Cat Named Darwin, p. 1447.

Library Journal, November 1, 2002, Eva Lautemann, review of A Cat Named Darwin p. 122.

New York Times Book Review, July 28, 1991, Harry Middleton, "Which Mockingbird Do You Hear?," p. 23.

Publishers Weekly, January 25, 1991, review of Divorce among the Gulls, p. 41; September 30, 2002, review of A Cat Named Darwin, p. 60.