Southwest Books of the Year
Bruce Dinges Picks
Blood and Thunder: An Epic of the American West
The bestselling author of Ghost Soldiers does for southwestern exploration what Stephen Ambrose, in Undaunted Courage, did for Lewis and Clark's opening of the Pacific Northwest. Centering his story loosely around the life and career of frontiersman Kit Carson, Sides relates, in engrossing detail, America's pursuit of Manifest Destiny and the dispossession of the Navajo. Carson emerges as both hero and villain among a fascinating cast of characters--Anglo, Hispanic and Native American--vying for control of a continent. This is popular history at its best. The dust-jacket illustration of Apache (rather than Navajo) warriors is a reminder of how Easterners today continue to stereotype the Southwest.
Doc Holliday: The Life and Legend
Roberts draws on decades of meticulous research in this definitive biography of the consumptive Georgia dentist who strode into history and legend with the Earp brothers at the OK. Corral gunfight. Not the least of Roberts's accomplishments are the insights he brings to Holliday's familial and cultural background and his thoughtful dissection of the Holliday legend. Doc Holliday will stand the test of time alongside Casey Tefertiller's Wyatt Earp: The Man Behind the Legend.
Girl From Charnelle, The
Cook--who teaches creative writing at Prescott College--has written a pitch-perfect coming-of-age novel set in a small Texas Panhandle town during the waning days of the Eisenhower administration. A sixteen-year-old girl, haunted by her mother's inexplicable disappearance, begins an affair with a married man twice her age. With remarkable insight and sensibility, Cook lays bare the cords of love and loss, yearning and redemption, that surround the human heart. This is a spellbinding read.
Inferno
In a book that pushes the boundaries of the senses, Bowden writes in a self-described "white heat" about his personal affair with the seared landscape of what is now the Sonoran Desert National Monument. Michael Berman's black-and-white photographs highlight Bowden's raw portrait of nature that is at once honest and unforgiving.
Night Journal, The
Crook has fashioned a compulsive pageturner in this richly-textured story set in northern New Mexico. On a visit from Texas to Pecos Pueblo and Las Vegas with her opinionated and strong-willed grandmother, Meg Mabry unravels family secrets hidden for a century in the pages of her great-grandmother's journal. Crook has done her research and writes convincingly of ties and lies between four generations of southwestern women.
Reaper's Line, The: Life and Death on the Mexican Border
Morgan, a retired special agent for the U.S. Customs Service, files an unvarnished report from the front line of America's war on drugs and illegal immigrants. While alternately railing against corrupt Mexican officials and his inept, uninformed, and unengaged rear-echelon superiors, Morgan offers eye-opening and hair-raising first-hand insight into a violent world complicated by politics, greed, and bigotry--and he isn't afraid to name names. Behind his bombastic, profane, no-holds-barred literary style, Morgan writes with sympathy and understanding about complicated border issues.
Shape Shifter, The
Hillerman demonstrates that he is still the grand master in his tightly-plotted 22nd novel. In typical Hillerman fashion, readers learn important lessons about Navajo history and culture as retired tribal policeman Joe Leaphorn unravels a mystery involving an arson death and the disappearance of a distinctive rug. In the process, Hillerman also paints an affecting portrait of a widower coping with loneliness and the annoying infirmities of advancing age. A completely satisfying read.
Sunshot: Peril and Wonder in the Gran Desierto
The Devil's Highway is crisscrossed with footprints, and many of those footprints belong to Bill Broyles. In a book that is at once intimate and humbling, readers accompany Broyles as he hikes desert trails from Ajo to Yuma and from Wellton to the Sierra Pinacate, pausing along the way to reflect on the landscape and man's relationship to this vast emptiness. Michael Berman's awe-inspiring black-and-white photographs provide the perfect visual backdrop for Broyles' elegant prose. A must for every southwestern bookshelf.
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