A fascinating social history disguised as a book about snakes. Venom has plenty of heart-in-mouth moments, thanks to the deadly Australian taipans at its centre. But the story goes much deeper, with characters to cheer (and weep) for, and bigger questions about living on, and with, this island continent.

A nonfiction book about the taipan, the most venomous snake in the world (well, depending on how one measures such things), and the effort to capture a living snake for study and to enable the production of an antivenom. Murray is far more interested in the story of the people involved in this search than he is in the snake or its biology, which ends up producing a book that reads a lot like an action movie. Which is not a criticism! I loved how much this felt like a suspenseful thriller. There were a few scenes that were so unbelievably wild I had to read them out loud to my partner.

Murray focuses on four people in particular: George Rosendale, a young Aboriginal man (only 19 when he was bitten in 1949) who is the only person ever known to have survived a taipan bite without being treated with antivenom; Bruce Stringer, a ten-year-old who was bitten in 1955 and became the first human to receive the then brand-new antivenom; Kevin Budden, an amateaur herpetologist who in 1950 captured the first living taipan but who died in the process; and John Dwyer, a friend of Budden's who in his memory captures the second living taipan, said snake becoming both the most significant contributor to antivenom production and the first taipan to be exhibited in a zoo. Between these men and others featured more briefly, Venom is packed full of exciting stories of hunting snakes through jungles and sugarcane fields, and medical dramas in which lives are saved or lost as doctors and amateurs struggle to find the best treatments. It's not all page-turning adventures though; I appreciate how much attention Murray gave to the role of colonialism and anti-Aboriginal racism, both in Rosendale's personal life and the larger scope of Australian history.

I do have a few criticisms. Murray jumps back and forth between so many characters (are they still called characters if they're real people? whatever) and between so many time periods that I was often confused and had trouble remembering who was who. Less significantly, I longed for a epilogue or short final chapter that would have covered what we now know about taipan. A great deal of Venom is taken up with scientists arguing over what were unknowns in the 1940s and 50s – is the taipan a separate species from the Eastern Brown Snake? Is it venomous? If so, how much? how big does it get? where can it be found? how far south does its range extend? – that by the time I reached the end of the book, I was desperate for answers! Don't make me do my own research, Murray, especially since I'm too lazy to go past Wikipedia.

Overall, I'd absolutely recommend this to anyone who enjoys creepy biology or exciting history.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/2256402753

To the aborigines of Guugu Yimithirr nation, it was called nguman. To the whites, it was called the taipan. To the rest of the world, it's was the deadliest snake in the world, 8 feet long with strong muscle and lightning quick reflexes, and a bite that was 100% lethal before antivenom was developed (until George Rosendale, a member of the Guugu Yimithirr nation, survived, and no one knew how). This is a book about the snake itself, how it was found, feared, eventually captured in numbers with casualties, venom milked, and finally, antivenom developed. But it is also an allegory, about the savage treatment of the land and its original inhabitants. Filled with photographs, many of which were only in private collections, this was an interesting book that is part snake history, part Australian history, and all of it, centered on one creature that is both feared and respected...

If you are looking for a pure history, you'll be disappointed, as this is creative non-fiction, based on countless hours of research and interviews of people who were there, or from historical archives. Sometimes the story went into excruciating detail about the mistreatment of the aborigines. The Guugu Yimithirr nation was rounded up and relocated by soldiers with no food or clothing and 1/3 of their children dead of disease at the beginning of WW2 because there were fears that they may be Japanese sympathizers. And a lot of the snake bite victim deaths were described in detail, which can make you a bit squeamish. The attempts to capture the snakes were also described in detail, as were the attempts to keep them alive for continued venom milking. All in all, I think I can give this book