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W. David Laird Picks

Billy the Kid: the Endless Ride
By Michael Wallis. W.W.Norton & Co.
Wallis is an experienced journalist who writes smooth, readable prose. He has obviously read a massive amount of what we might call “Billy-lit” and, as journalists do, has winnowed the grain from the chaff providing us with an account that is as much about the literature as it is about the Kid’s life. Unfortunately there is little “grain” available from Billy’s early years and the reader is left with much that is speculation until the New Mexico years when the Kid’s role in local feuds begins to be documented in letters and official records. However, Wallis knows that his version is not the final story and, as the subtitle suggests, no end is in sight for the retelling of a fascinating tale.
Brujerías : Stories of Witchcraft and the Supernatural in the American Southwest and Beyond
By Nasario García. Texas Tech University Press
As author, editor or co-editor Garcia has been presenting us with fascinating pieces of our southwestern heritage, usually, as is the case here, bi-lingually, for at least twenty years. His 1987 book Tales of the Rio Puerco opened for me an unknown world of folk wisdom. Brujerias is an eye-opener too. In this book he has collected and edited/translated more than 125 accounts of witchcraft, ghosts, and things that go bump in the night. He presents them in six categories, the most interesting being “Witches, Spooks and Ghostly Apparitions”, “Lights, Sparks and Balls of Fire”, and “Handsome, With Hoofs and Tail”. The teller of each tale is named and Garcia’s introduction to each spine chilling section explains the category. Whether you believe in such Halloweenish things, or not, this is a terrific book by an expert.
Crossing the Yard: Thirty Years as a Prison Volunteer
By Richard Shelton. University of Arizona Press
This is a simultaneously wonderful and painful memoir of Shelton’s efforts to establish and maintain writing workshops in Arizona’s prisons. The wonder comes from amazing accomplishments that include his students producing prize-winning books and poems; the pain comes from seeing a prison system that has no interest in rehabilitating prisoners and in fact seems to seek to thwart any efforts in that direction. If I could think of a more positive adjective than superb, I would apply it to this book.
Native Americans of Arizona
By Paul and Kathleen Nickens. Arcadia Publishing
Divided into six chapters (the Hopis and Navajos each get one, the others are collective) this nifty volume shows us more than 200 b/w picture postcards with brief statements about the things and people pictured. I have been collecting postcards showing Hopi subjects for more than 30 years and have about 200 cards in my collection, but the Nickenses have presented me with several I do not own whetting my appetite to hit the flea markets and yard sales again!
Pulp Writer: Twenty Years in the American Grub Street
By Paul S. Powers. University of Nebraska Press
This autobiography was “discovered” by Powers' granddaughter, decades after his death in 1971. It is a never-published typescript saved by an aunt. Paul Bowers was one of those writers who actually made a living during the heyday of the pulps by writing under dozens of pseudonyms, publishing hundreds of stories (mostly Westerns), millions of words, paid for at one cent per word. He, his wife, and family were constantly on the move and lived all over the American West including much time in Southern Arizona. Strange to say, his family, friends and surrounding geography don’t get much of his attention, but this is a great read, especially for those who might have an itch to make a living in the fiction writing game.
Sanctuaries of Earth, Stone, and Light: The Churches of Northern New Spain, 1530-1821
By Gloria Kay Giffords. University of Arizona Press
Nearly 30 years ago, with publication of her first book, Five Mexican Santos from San Jose de Tumacacori, Giffords established herself as an expert on the religious art of the Southwest. Over the years she has solidified her reputation with books both technically expert and increasingly well-written. This one is a wide-ranging survey based on personal visits to, as she puts it “...every viceregal mission, cathedral, and parochial structure in the U. S., most of those in northern Mexico, and perhaps hundreds of other churches...” She provides about 200 black and white photographs and more than 300 drawings, plans, and maps so that the eye can appreciate what the words describe. This is a resource book for anyone with a serious interest in the religious architecture of our Southwest over the course of nearly 300 years.
Walk, The
By William Eno DeBuys. Trinity University Press
In a two-room house near a bend in northern New Mexico’s Rio de las Trampas (if you think “River of Traps” you may remember deBuys’ 1990 award winning book of that title), the author considers his life and the microcosm of a world around him. He describes a walk he has taken literally hundreds, perhaps thousands, of times: a circuit through a pass in the nearby hills, along the river, across a meadow, and back to his adobe rooms; forty minutes, he says, at a fast pace. Somber and thought-provoking stops along the way give him scope to meditate on subjects as diverse as water, horses, wildfires, divorce, life and death. A quiet book to read in a comfortable chair!
Zion Canyon: A Storied Land
By Greer K. Chesher. University of Arizona Press
Fine books about Zion National Park would fill a small shelf, maybe a big shelf, and this one would sit comfortably among them. Chesher, a park ranger, historian and interpreter for more than 20 years, weaves a personal, loving account of this magical place, never failing to keep us technically aware of what it is geologically, historically, even botanically. Whether she is huddled on a ledge all night next to a roaring flash flood or just experiencing a grand vista, her prose is crisp, almost chatty, always precise. Excellent word-pictures are supplemented by Plyer’s good black and white photos.

About W. David Laird

W. David Laird is the former head of libraries at the University of Arizona. He owns Books West Southwest, an online and mail order book service. He was on the first Southwest Books of the Year panel in 1977; after a few years off for good behavior, he came back on in 2001.