Books of Interest
We’ve spent many years reading and analyzing good writing on the American Southwest, its sights, and native peoples. Over the months ahead, we’ll suggest groups of publications on a central theme. While some of these titles may still be in print, others are not. Yet they can be found in used book stores around the country, or ordered through Amazon. Looking for these books is a special form of treasure hunting. One place to visit, when in Arizona, is Guidon Books on Main Street in Scottsdale’s Old Town.
The first group of titles are excellent introductions to the Southwest, and are all by master writers. Each one is a work of superb storytelling.
Peter Matthiessen. Indian Country. New York: Viking Press, 1984. (ISBN 0-670-39787-3)
Draws upon the primal feelings of the native people themselves towards their land.
Alex Shoumatoff. Legends of the American Desert: Sojourns in the Greater Southwest. New York: HarperCollins, 1997. (ISBN 0-8263-0969-0)
This seasoned writer’s own introduction to the region incorporates myriad historical vignettes and anecdotal encounters with the geography and the people. A big, sprawling story that makes the reader feel right at home, even as the narrator is coming to grips with the subject.
Terry Tempest Williams. Pieces of White Shell: A Journey to Navajoland. Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1987. (ISBN 0-8263-0969-0)
Once a teacher on the Navajo reservation, the author utilizes a poetic, mystical approach to the legends and rituals of its inhabitants. She then attempts to bridge the cultural divide through evocative reflections. A quiet masterpiece of writing.
A Trio of Books on Photography and the Navajo
The following titles represent differing studies of non-Indians photographing the Navajo people. Each one is interesting because of its author’s perspective on how the camera portrays native life.
Earle R. Forrest. With a Camera in Old Navaholand. Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1970. (ISBN 8061-0860-6)
Forrest narrates his experiences as a nineteen year old in 1902 Four Corners. Roaming around the Ute and Navajo reservations, he persuaded many skeptical, often uneasy, local people to let themselves be photographed. His stories are more telling than any anthropologist’s account of a lost era.
Laura Gilpin. The Enduring Navaho. Austin: University of Texas Press, 1968. (ISBN 0-292-72058-0)
This is a famous photographic study by a notable artist. Gilpin’s subjects are men, women, and children photographed between 1950 and 1965 in color and black and white film. Most of all, her studies celebrate a resilient people.
James C. Faris. Navajo and Photography: A Critical History of the Representation of an American People.Albuquerque: University of New Mexico Press, 1996. (ISBN 0-8263-1725-1)
Although an academic work, Faris’s excellent survey covers every aspect of photography as both a good and harmful medium. He discusses commercial exploitation, cultural pride, and the means whereby young native artists are making photography their own means of cultural expression.
Three Recent Books of Travelers’ Stories
We have a number of friends who are well traveled around the world. They always tell us that before setting out, they like to read good literature, especially short stories or unusual narratives, about the places they’re going to. We also like to read such tales, often bringing the books with us on the airplane, and avidly finishing them off in the hotel room. These three titles, two anthologies and a remarkable account by a European, promise great enjoyment.
Travelers’ Tales: American Southwest. Edited by Sean O’Reilly and James O’Reilly. San Francisco: Travelers’ Tales, 2001.
Subtitled “Arizona, New Mexico, Nevada and Utah True Stories,” the selections are short masterpieces by the likes of Edward Abbey, Terry Tempest Williams, and Tony Hillerman. Popular writers Douglas Preston and Barbara Kingsolver offer stories about the region they call home. Settings range from the Grand Staircase in Utah’s natural wilderness to the shining lights of the Strip in Las Vegas.
Travelers’ Tales: Grand Canyon. Edited by Sean O’Reilly, James O’Reilly and Larry Habegger. San Francisco: Travelers’ Tales, 2005.
An anthology of stories by noted nature writers pay homage to the wonders of this greatest of all canyons. Barry Lopez, Stewart Udall, Susan Zwinger, Scott Thybony, among others, write about favorite locations and the thrill they evoke. Narratives about the physical impact of traveling into the Canyon are especially memorable by John Annerino and Colin Fletcher.
Charles Langley. Meeting the Medicine Men: An Englishman’s Travels Among the Navajo. Boston: Nicholas Brealey Publishing, 2008.
I picked up this title at a Utah bookstore during our last visit in May. Langley, a journalist from North London with a powerful case of wanderlust, writes of his chance encounter with a young Navajo man while traveling across the U.S. This meeting leads to his involvement with several Navajo medicine men as an unlikely assistant; the story is fascinating and total engaging. Langley’s natural skepticism about native witchcraft and magic turns into profound respect.
Yankee Spokesman for the Southwest
How could we fail to admire a fellow Yankee, Charles Fletcher Lummis (1859-1928)? He was a larger-than-life character whose eccentricities helped to develop the Southwestern tourist trade and establish a remarkable museum. He defied the mold of most Victorian-era journalists, and his causes were remarkably those of the most contemporary of present-day civil rights activists. He walked from Ohio to California in 1884, securing himself a position as a reporter for the Los Angeles Times. But it was the American Southwest that stirred Lummis’s soul: from its rich landscape and spectacular vistas to the culture of its native peoples.
Mark Thompson. American Character: The Curious Life of Charles Fletcher Lummis and the Rediscovery of the Southwest. New York: Arcade, 2001.
His origins in New England gave little hint of the rich, sprawling life Lummis would find in the American West. His love for the Southwest shines through all his varied activities, from magazine editor who recruited the likes of Jack London and Mary Austin, to advisor to President Teddy Roosevelt. Lummis championed the American Indians and Hispanics of the region, and worked to preserve the historic Spanish Missions. The fruits of his inevitable collecting became the collections of the Southwest Museum in Pasadena.
Charles F. Lummis. Some Strange Corners of our Country: The Wonderland of the Southwest. Tucson: University of Arizona Press, (1892) 1989 reprint; 2008 reprint.
This book was more than just a guide to the region—it was an incitement to enchantment, foreshadowing New Mexico’s slogan as “Land of Enchantment.” The tourists of both coasts heeded his call, and sought out the tribes and archaeological treasures of the area. Like a good reporter, Lummis didn’t downplay the dangers and distances of the region, but he made their beauties come alive to the armchair reader.
Charles F. Lummis. Mesa, Cañon and Pueblo: Our Wonderland of the Southwest, Its Marvels of Nature, Its Pageant of the Earth Building, Its Strange Peoples, Its Centuried Romance. New York: The Century, 1925.
Turn the pages of this book and glimpse into our country’s past in vivid prose. Despite the carnival barker subtitle, Lummis sought hard to convey the magic of the Southwest—and he succeeded. The 1920s brought many other eastern-born tourists and emigrants. Many of these individual admit the debt they owed Lummis for calling them there. This book is a collectible in its own right.