Anatomy of a Beast

"A funny, well-written memoir about chasing down the believers."—Bookforum

"McLeod approaches Bigfoot culture the way Susan Orlean approached orchids . . . artfully traces our culture's obsession to walking man-beasts."—San Francisco Chronicle

"The author follows the evolution of the Sasquatch story through wingnut conventions, amateur museums, misty woodlands, dubious newspaper accounts and the journals of outlandish explorers. Even better, he introduces readers to the colorful gang of kooks and weirdos—most of them earnest believers—who make up the brotherhood of Bigfoot researchers. It's an entertaining and thoroughly researched travelogue, as much about America's need for mystery as the elusive denizens of the Klamath forests."—Willamette Week

"Insightful and amusing."—Santa Fe New Mexican

"Bigfoot isn't nearly as famous as s/he used to be. But that doesn't make McLeod's book—part history, part biography, and part adventure story—any less compelling. It's a vivid reminder of how a myth can propagate when one combines widespread deficiencies in basic education with a media that is all too willing to disseminate far-fetched stories."—Failure

"With prose that's both sensitive and probing, McLeod explores this very human aspect, the tendency to see pictures in the clouds, UFOs in the sky, and fragments of evolution in the woods."—Foreword

"A look back to the late-19th-century roots of the myth and forward to how such inexplicable beings live on in our technological scientific age."—The Oregonian