On September 21, 2012, twenty-five year old David Villalobos purchased a
pass for the Bronx Zoo and a ticket for a ride on the Bengali Express
Monorail. Biding his time, he waited until the monorail was just near
the enclosure of a four hundred pound Siberian tiger named Bashuta
before leaping into it. They spent ten long minutes together in the
tiger's cage before nature took its course, with one exception: The
tiger did not kill him. David's only response: "It's a spiritual thing.
I wanted to be at one with the tiger."
One with The Tiger: On Savagery and Intimacy uses David's story, and
other moments of violent encounters between humans and predators, to
explore the line between human and animal. Exposing what the author
defines as the "shared liminal space between peace and violence," Church
posits that the animal is always encroaching on the civilization --and
those seeking its wildness are in fact searching for an ecstatic moment
that can define what it means to be human. Using examples from Timothy
Treadwell to Mike Tyson, or such television icons as Grizzly Adams and
The Incredible Hulk, Church shows how this ecstasy can seep its way into
the less natural world of popular culture, proving time and again that
each of us can be our own worst predator.