Fans of the true-crime thriller, The Feather Thief: Beauty, Obsession, and the Natural History Heist of the Century, took a deep-dive into the investigation behind and writing of this truth is stranger than fiction story with its author Kirk Wallace Johnson on Thursday evening, October 10. An Evening with Author Kirk Wallace Johnson was the signature event for this fall’s One Book, One Village (OBOV), the Arlington Heights Memorial Library’s (AHML) annual community read.
“How many people have read the book,” Johnson asked the audience of some 330 people who came to hear the former West Chicago resident speak at Forest View Auditorium. A show of hands revealed that nearly everyone in attendance had read the book.
“This is a very good town, thank you for that,” Johnson exclaimed. “Thank you to all of you for reading the book and for voting for it.”
The Feather Thief was selected as the book for OBOV 2019 through a first-time community vote held earlier this year. Since mid-May when AHML announced The Feather Thief, copies of the book have circulated close to 2,000 times.
Johnson began his presentation with a dramatic reading from the book of the pages that recount in captivating detail the June 2009 crime in which Edwin Rist, a 20-year-old American student at the London Conservatory of Music, broke into the Tring Museum, a branch of the British Museum of Natural History, stole 299 dead, rare birds and disappeared into the night. He later dismantled the birds and sold the feathers, reaping more than $250,000 from an underground world of salmon fly-tyers. How did he do it and why?
“The biggest challenge in writing this book was I had to establish the history of the collection and why the birds were valuable before you get to the heist,” Johnson explained.
He proceeded to lead the audience on an insightful and entertaining journey on how he pieced together this critically acclaimed work of nonfiction. Sharing supplemental material not in the book including footage of exotic birds and photos of 19th century women donning hats embellished with beautiful, feathered creatures, Johnson built the case for why the birds and feathers had value.
“All living things are not made for man,” Johnson said quoting the writings of Alfred Russel Wallace, the British naturalist who led scientific expeditions in the mid-1800s to the Malay Archipelago and South America and collected bird specimens, the ones later stolen in the heist. Wallace was also the first Westerner to lay eyes on birds like the King Bird of Paradise.
“When Wallace saw this bird he understood that this beauty was dangerous,” Johnson said. “Wallace realized these specimens held the answers to questions that haven’t even been asked yet.”
Johnson also shared behind the scenes details of his investigation into the heist and played for the audience two audio recordings extracted from his more than eight-hour interview with Rist. The recordings titled: “Ft. Knox of feathers…” and “I’m not a thief…” captured in chilling detail the voice of Edwin Rist describing the thrill of seeing the rare feathers for the first time and defending his actions by declaring, “I am not a thief in the sense that people can leave their wallet with me.”
A lively conversation with the audience followed during which Johnson took questions including one that still haunts the author to this day, “Did Edwin act alone?”
“We’ll never be able to prove definitively that he acted alone, but it is possible,” said Johnson.
An Evening with Author Kirk Wallace Johnson was supported, in part, by the Friends of the Library. One Book, One Village continued through the end of October.