A memoir of a 1950s Kansas boyhood when girls and sex are the world's biggest mysteries; reptiles, especially snakes, are fascinating . . . and catchable; and awkward adolescent boys-thank goodness-form friendships that help them navigate life and all its confusing moments. The most important people in our lives are sometimes only there for a season, and in Reptile Romance, Harley shares the season of his teen years with humor and respect.
Harley Elliott's teenage adventures took him places where he was "lost in the implacable Blue Racer's eye, the Bull Snake's pugnacious grimace, the combination of pattern and design." Simultaneously funny and poignant, this narrative of a few years at the end of a 1950s Kansas boyhood allows us access to the internal life of a thoughtful, horny, reptile-obsessed teen. That teen finds friends and unlikely mentors through a shared interest in snakes of the prairie, and thus the discoveries begin. It's true that Reptile Romance is a book about learning to catch and hold snakes while trying to figure out how to catch and hold girls. But Elliott's memoir trusts us to comprehend something more vital: the genesis of a worldview that will carry a man forward through a life in nature, poetry, and art.
-Lori Brack, author of Museum Made of Breath (Spartan Press, 2018) and A Case for the Dead Letter Detective (Kelsay Books, 2021)
