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Desert Time
New Englander Diana Kappel-Smith explored the great deserts of the American West over an 18-month period. Traveling largely alone through the Southwest and parts of Idaho and Oregon, she logged 25,000 miles and discovered facets of the desert—and its human inhabitants—that may surprise even long-time residents.
"You come to trust her company and to savor her she is the sort of guide who gestures at what you would otherwise step across—or on—without noticing. She calls her collection 'an introduction to particulars.' These she infuses with radiance." —Los Angeles Times Book Review
"With prose that is both lyrical and down-to-earth, Kappel-Smith makes readers aware of the fragility of the desert and the necessity to preserve these wonderful, alien and mysterious places." —San Francisco Chronicle
"We glimpse moments of experience, rendered both in words and in conscientious line drawings. The book has a gentle, meandering tone. It consciously refuses to manufacture dramatic events." —Christian Science Monitor
"You come to trust her company and to savor her she is the sort of guide who gestures at what you would otherwise step across—or on—without noticing. She calls her collection 'an introduction to particulars.' These she infuses with radiance." —Los Angeles Times Book Review
"With prose that is both lyrical and down-to-earth, Kappel-Smith makes readers aware of the fragility of the desert and the necessity to preserve these wonderful, alien and mysterious places." —San Francisco Chronicle
"We glimpse moments of experience, rendered both in words and in conscientious line drawings. The book has a gentle, meandering tone. It consciously refuses to manufacture dramatic events." —Christian Science Monitor
- GenresNonfiction
280 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1992
26 people want to read
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Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews
April 10, 2019
Published in 1992, this book describes the author's various travels through parts of America's southwest, spending time in each of the country's four deserts: the Mojave, the Great Basin, the Sonoran, and the Chihuahuan Deserts. Over eighteen months, she hiked the wilderness, camped under the stars, observed wildlife, and met local residents.
She took notes: plants, birds and other animals, landscape, sounds, smells, thoughts, ideas. She made sketches: kangaroo rat tracks, Anasazi pots, a side-blotched lizard, the Guadalupe Mountains, Merriam berry poppies, among other things.
Then she wrote her book.
Her drawings are wonderful and her descriptions of her encounters with those living in the areas she visited are insightful and often amusing.
The book drags, on occasion, as she seems to try just a little too hard to write grandiose prose. But this was published back when creative nonfiction was pretty new, memoirs hadn't gained the traction they have now, so I've been spoiled by those who've published in the intervening years, polishing the personal narrative to a fine sheen.
The book's locations were sometimes specific, other times vague, and the narrative jumped around from place to place in each chapter, perhaps reflecting more the sequence of her travels from New England to the Western deserts than following a narrative or thematic thread (though there could have been one I missed).
Even so, I went through the book a second time, finding the locations she identified on my road atlas, and making notes about places my husband and I might want to visit (knowing full well nearly thirty years have passed since Kappel-Smith was there) as we travel the country in our RV. I know her intent was never to write a travelogue, and we've been to many of the places she describes already, but visiting the Idaho Hotel (don't call it the Ghost Hotel!) or Pahranagat, for example, sure sound more interesting after having read Desert Time.
She took notes: plants, birds and other animals, landscape, sounds, smells, thoughts, ideas. She made sketches: kangaroo rat tracks, Anasazi pots, a side-blotched lizard, the Guadalupe Mountains, Merriam berry poppies, among other things.
Then she wrote her book.
Her drawings are wonderful and her descriptions of her encounters with those living in the areas she visited are insightful and often amusing.
The book drags, on occasion, as she seems to try just a little too hard to write grandiose prose. But this was published back when creative nonfiction was pretty new, memoirs hadn't gained the traction they have now, so I've been spoiled by those who've published in the intervening years, polishing the personal narrative to a fine sheen.
The book's locations were sometimes specific, other times vague, and the narrative jumped around from place to place in each chapter, perhaps reflecting more the sequence of her travels from New England to the Western deserts than following a narrative or thematic thread (though there could have been one I missed).
Even so, I went through the book a second time, finding the locations she identified on my road atlas, and making notes about places my husband and I might want to visit (knowing full well nearly thirty years have passed since Kappel-Smith was there) as we travel the country in our RV. I know her intent was never to write a travelogue, and we've been to many of the places she describes already, but visiting the Idaho Hotel (don't call it the Ghost Hotel!) or Pahranagat, for example, sure sound more interesting after having read Desert Time.
August 17, 2017
Kappel-Smith never disappoints. with a prose style that reads like the love child of John McPhee and Annie Dillard she embodies some of the finest nature/reflections on humanity/ scientific writing available to us today. In my humble opinion, that is.
The only truly unforgiving fatal flaw in her work, (besides a few rumination on climate change that are completely in line with 1992 when the book was written) i that she stopped. I can find no trace of the woman after the early 90's. And I've looked.
The only truly unforgiving fatal flaw in her work, (besides a few rumination on climate change that are completely in line with 1992 when the book was written) i that she stopped. I can find no trace of the woman after the early 90's. And I've looked.
Displaying 1 - 2 of 2 reviews