Ellen Meloy (1946–2004)

I picked this up thinking it would be a micro-history of turquoise, and found that it was worlds more than that. A blend of nature lit and memoir and meditation, all distilled through a fierce love of one particular place on this big beautiful earth. I think it should only be read outdoors, or at least with a view toward outdoors, in a place that you love.

Ellen Meloy is hunkered down in a corner of the desert near the San Juan River in Utah. While she and her husband, Mark, call this barren land home, it is also close to Los Alamos and the White Sands Missile Range. Meloy, using her love for the west and naturalist instincts, explores what this atomic history's proximity means to the environment. As the subtitle implies, it's the juxtaposition of violence and beauty across a landscape that is teeming with the will to go on.
Meloy writes with show more wit, humor, and dare I say, sarcasm. I found a whole slew of passages I wanted to quote. I knew I was in for a good ride when I read that Meloy had just poured scalding hot water over coffee grounds and, inadvertently, a sleeping lizard: "I sat on the front steps of the screenhouse with sunrise burning crimson on the sandstone cliffs above the river and a boiled reptile in my cup" (p 3). show less

A book about the author struggle to reconcile the beauty of her desert home surroundings and the fact that the world's most lethal weapons got their start there. I was expecting more about nature and less about nuclear weapons, but was drawn in by the beautiful writing.. I'm interested in the desert southwest, and she's a definite find. The main thrust of the book has more to do with the author's personal struggle than the actual desert, but it's honest stuff, and some of it is very funny. show more I've already started another one her books, Raven's Exile. show less

Only parts of this book are about the desert Southwest, which is what I was interested in. Subject matter ranges widely from one chapter to the next, and sometimes she goes off on tangents that bewilder me. When she sticks to the subject at hand, whatever it is, she writes beautifully about it. When the writing takes off someplace else, it's either hold on or skip over. I did a lot of skipping over. There is some crossover from chapter to chapter, but best to consider this a book of show more individual essays loosely linked, land pick and choose the ones that interest you. That said, at her best she writes about the Southwest as well as anyone. show less