Desierto: Memories of the Future

by Charles Bowden, William deBuys (Foreword by)

Overview

The acclaimed author of Blue Desert explores life on the arid borderlands of southern Arizona in this “compelling and wonderfully poetic” essay collection (Ron Hansen, New York Times Book Review).

In Desierto, Charles Bowden brings his signature eye for vivid detail and penetrating insight to the Sonoran Desert. Travelling across this unforgiving terrain, he explores struggling desert villages, bitter Indian feuds, and a rich history that transcends borders. He profiles notorious predators from mountain lions to drug lords and land barons. Through it all, Bowden offers prescient visions of a future in which the region’s age-old dramas replay themselves long into the future.

“In these powerful epic tales of the Sonora Desert, Bowden peoples the harsh land on both sides of the US-Mexican border with saints and sinners, but his enduring hero is the desert itself.” —Kirkus Reviews

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781477316603
Publisher:	University of Texas Press
Publication date:	02/24/2022
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
Pages:	257
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Author of many acclaimed books about the American Southwest and US-Mexico border issues, Charles Bowden (1945-2014) was a contributing editor for GQ, Harper’s, Esquire, and Mother Jones and also wrote for the New York Times Book Review, High Country News, and Aperture. His honors included a PEN First Amendment Award, Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction, and the Sidney Hillman Award for outstanding journalism that fosters social and economic justice. He wrote The Red Caddy in 1994.

What People are Saying About This

Esquire

"Where most ecologically minded writers draw a clean line in the sand between man and nature, Bowden stomps all over the sanctimonious boundary, in the process merging history and natural history into a spooky and seamless narrative."

Ron Hansen

"A compelling and wonderfully poetic book. . . . [Charles Bowden is] a forthright and thrillingly good writer."

Los Angeles Times

"A dark, troubling vision of life in the desert, defined broadly; of mountain lions and drug kingpins, Mexican hopes and Indian feuds . . . and the romantic faddishness of environmentalists. Bowden is an observant reporter, but the primitive strength of Desierto derives from his compulsive hunger . . . to examine and experience the underside of border life. . . . Fansof Castaneda and Traven will find much to like here."

Editorial Reviews

Here Bowden ( Blue Desert ) probes the spiritual decadence of those arid lands that knife into Mexico from southern Arizona, the desierto. For the author, this is home turf, and he knows it well. What he shows is a harsh land repeatedly exploited by a greedy white culture and now ruled by drug lords and land barons. He focuses on the victims living in fearful and impoverished Sonoran villages, shifting his gaze at times to the exploiters, like Phoenix developer Charles Keating and a Tucson drug trafficker identified only as Mr. Tombstone. (Bowden's fascination with predators also informs his observations on another local kingpin, the mountain lion.) The pages brim with gore, lust and folly. Bowden sees the region as equally barren of imagination and topography, and forecasts a gloomy future in which the old problems will arise again and again. (June)

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Bowden ( Red Line , LJ 10/15/89) writes about the U.S./Mexico border region of the Sonoran Desert, describing what life has become for many of its inhabitants. With insight and an eye for detail, he captures the simple beauty of this harsh landscape and transcends the traditional view of the desert as merely a place to survive or exploit. Although his narrative is sparse, vivid descriptions cover a variety of topics from the concerns of poor Hispanics and Native Americans to the opulent lifestyle of former Arizona S&L magnate Charles S. Keating. A friend of the late Edward Abbey, Bowden shares his love for the region and its peoples but seems better able to accept the changes wrought by modern society as inevitable if not always desirable. Ultimately, by humanizing the complicated problems facing the region he allows the reader to decide if these developments are acceptable or inherently evil. Recommended for academic, large public, and special libraries.-- Tim Markus, Evergreen State Coll., Olympia, Wash.

Library Journal

"A dark, troubling vision of life in the desert, defined broadly; of mountain lions and drug kingpins, Mexican hopes and Indian feuds . . . and the romantic faddishness of environmentalists. Bowden is an observant reporter, but the primitive strength of Desierto derives from his compulsive hunger . . . to examine and experience the underside of border life. . . . Fansof Castaneda and Traven will find much to like here."

|Los Angeles Times

"Where most ecologically minded writers draw a clean line in the sand between man and nature, Bowden stomps all over the sanctimonious boundary, in the process merging history and natural history into a spooky and seamless narrative."

Esquire