BOOKS: In Your Face

From ANIMAL PEOPLE, April 1997:

In Your Face
by Chris DeRose
Duncan Publishing (order c/o
Last Chance for Animals, 8033
Sunset Blvd., Suite 35, Los
Angeles, CA 90046), 1997.
303 pages, $21.00, paperback.

Chris DeRose rather
enjoys writing about Chris DeRose
and his exploits during the course of
In Your Face. His adventures are
often the type of stuff that without
adequate context can give animal
rights activists a bad name, especially
when direct action comes
across as a shortcut taken because
it’s exciting, bypassing the obligations

of citizenship, instead of as a
desperate last resort when normal
civil process has failed. Blurb
phrases about “the frontlines of the
fight,” “covert infiltration,” and
being arrested for civil disobedience
emphasize that animal rights
activism can offer James Bond-ish
danger and excitement––and cause
one to question whether that’s what
attracts DeRose, who as the promotional
literature also ballyhoos, is a
Hollywood actor by trade who “has
also been a cop, a private investigator,
a black belt in martial arts, a
pilot, a reporter.”
DeRose’s main concerns
are the theft and subsequent slaughter
of pet animals for human consumption,
as well as the plight of
animals kept in experimental laboratories
for vivisection. The horror and
inhumanity of these situations is
enough to make anyone heartsick;
and indeed DeRose, the founder of
Last Chance for Animals, is doing
something about it. But one might
appreciate a little less action-thriller
adventure in the recounting.
–-Pamela Kemp