"McPhee writes as well as anyone in America. His prose is simple and lyrical, his images are sharply focused. And here are five profiles that prove it. His subjects: Thomas P. F. Hoving, art historian, sometime political influence, former floorwalker; the late Euell Gibbons, famous forager of edible wild plants and author of Stalking the Wild Asparagus; Carroll Brewster of the intrepid team of M.I.T. Fellows, in the Sudan; Robert Twynam, tender of the lawn at Wimbledon; and Temple Fielding, mercurial and influential author of the popular travel guides to Europe."—Clarence Peterson, Chicago Tribune
