The Last Cheater's Waltz: Beauty and Violence in the Desert Southwest

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 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 show more 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. I've already started another one her books, Raven's Exile.

The strength of The Last Cheater's Waltz is in Meloy's command of language and her sense of humor. She focuses on the nuclear testing grounds in New Mexico, and the Map of the Known World, of her property in Utah, all with a keen eye and a true love of the land. Her exploration into the nuances of a place perceived as desolate is an absorbing foray into nature writing that doesn't fetishize the landscape but tries to locate the reason why we're drawn to places we would deem our home. Her essays are a quest and a I was quite happy to take the journey with her.