Sundown Legends
A Journey into the American Southwest
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- $11.99
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- $11.99
Publisher Description
Standing atop the wall of California, Michael Checchio decided to head out for Saline and Death Valley, the canyonlands of Arizona and Utah and the uplands of New Mexico. He would re-visit old haunts and explore new ones-and in so doing rediscover a world he thought he already knew.
In Sundown Legends, Checchio offers up the American Southwest as a spiritual repository and source of inspiration. On his travels he talked to individuals whose imaginations have been shaped by the power of this desert landscape, including Ken Sleight, the Utah wilderness outfitter, who was the inspiration for a character in THE MONKEY WRENCH GANG and novlist John Nichols, author of the MILAGRO BEANFIELD WAR, who wandered into Taos in the late sixties and found a place to make his stand. Like Michael Wallis, Michael Checchio is a powerfully gifted writer who has created an intimate and lasting portrait of one of our last remaining wild places.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Throughout this account of a monthlong tour of the American Southwest, Checchio (A Clean, Well-Lighted Stream) seems stuck in a bad mood. He sets out from San Francisco in a rented Chevy Blazer to explore the deserts and canyons of Arizona, Utah and New Mexico. His tour covers so much ground so quickly that it ends up feeling like a one-night stand with the vast landscape; just for starters he bombs across the Mojave (which he describes as the "Big Nothing"), peeks over the North Rim of the Grand Canyon and gets a flat changed in Zion National Park. Checchio's descriptions of the land feel similarly hurried, and his comments can be hostile and insensitive, especially when it comes to people. He spends too much time harping about other tourists' bad habits, the worst of which seems to be their decision to visit the same sites he's visiting. In fact, no one but historical figures and writers he respects survive his judgment unscathed. For example, he flippantly equates artists in Santa Fe with sex offenders, reduces Congress and the Bureau of Land Management to a group of wilderness haters, declares that Americans "are monolingual, and proud of it" and blithely stereotypes Native Americans. At times Checchio attempts to capture the power of the desert around him, but he always seems to give up, leaving readers with an exasperating ride through a landscape that deserves, and has gotten, much better treatment.
