On the Trail of the Jackalope: How a Legend Captured the World's Imagination and Helped Us Cure Cancer
We’re thrilled to announce a new book by prior Ellen Meloy Award winner and current board member, Michael P. Branch!
The never-before-told story of the horned rabbit—the myths, the hoaxes, the very real scientific breakthrough it inspired—and how it became a cultural touchstone of the American West.
Just what is a jackalope? Purported to be part jackrabbit and part antelope, the jackalope began as a local joke concocted by two young brothers in a small Wyoming town during the Great Depression. Their creation quickly spread around the U.S., where it now regularly appears as innumerable forms of kitsch—wall mounts, postcards, keychains, coffee mugs, shot glasses, and so on. A vast body of folk narratives has carried the jackalope’s fame around the world to inspire art, music, film, even erotica!
Although the jackalope is an invention of the imagination, it is nevertheless connected to actual horned rabbits, which exist in nature and have for centuries been collected and studied by naturalists. Around the time the two young boys were creating the first jackalope in Wyoming, Dr. Richard Shope was making his first breakthrough about the cause of the horns: a virus. When the virus that causes rabbits to grow “horns” (a keratinous carcinoma) was first genetically sequenced in 1984, oncologists were able to use that genetic information to make remarkable, field-changing advances in the development of anti-viral cancer therapies. The most important of these is the human papillomavirus (HPV) vaccine, which protects against cervical and other cancers. Today, jackalopes are literally helping us cure cancer.
Praise for On the Trail of the Jackalope
“Mr. Branch knows at least as much about jackalopes as Einstein knew about physics. He reveals that the jackalope of American folklore (or inspired hucksterism) has a real-life counterpart—the hornéd rabbit, a creature with protrusions that can resemble antlers. Mr. Branch has a good deal to say about one of nature’s stranger animals and also deeply ponders the mythological form, wondering why people dream up jackalopes and other fanciful creatures in the first place.” — Dave Shiflett, Wall Street Journal
“In this charming travelogue, Branch recounts his tracking down of various jackalope tall tales and the roots of such hoaxes and our fascination with them. He ends with the amazing true story of the discovery of the role of a virus in actual naturally occurring ‘horned rabbits,’ and how this led to the creation of the vaccine for human papillomavirus.” — Booklist
Michael P. Branch is a professor of literature and environment at the University of Nevada, Reno, where he teaches creative nonfiction, American literature, environmental studies, and film studies. An award-winning writer and humorist, Michael is the author of How to Cuss in Western and lives with his wife and two daughters in the western Great Basin Desert, on the eastern slope of the Sierra Nevada Range.