Mezcal

by Charles Bowden

The acclaimed author “excavates his own tormented life—and its relation to the land he loves—in a series of powerful, imagistic autobiographical essays” (Kirkus Reviews).   “Romping drunkenly into Mexico, protesting the Vietnamese war at the University of Wisconsin, marching on the capitol in Washington, hiking into the Pinacate, returning to the family farm in Germantown, Iowa. These and other scenes flash before the reader in Charles Bowden’s Mezcal, the final piece of his Southwest trilogy . . . Although the book is ostensibly autobiographical, Bowden’s overriding concern is with trying to make sense of the Sunbelt Phenomena.” —Dick Kirkpatrick, Western American Literature   “In Mezcal . . . Bowden drops the journalistic veil, exploring the ecology of his interior landscape at least as thoroughly as the changing scenery that surrounds him . . . Others—Aldo Leopold, Edward Abbey—have already staked inviolate claims on the Southwestern deserts. But Bowden owns the complex terrain where, like a mezcal-inspired mirage, the Sonoran sun-belt overlaps the gray convolutions of the American mind.” —Los Angeles Times   “Mezcal is also a lyrical meditation upon the ultimate strength of the land, specifically the desert Southwest, and how that land prevails and endures despite every effort of modern industry and development to rape and savage it in the name of progress. Mezcal lingers in the mind as only the very best books manage to do.” —Harry Crews, author of A Feast of Snakes

Genres: Environment

166 pages, Kindle Edition

First published August 1, 1988

About the author

Charles Bowden was an American non-fiction author, journalist and essayist based in Las Cruces, New Mexico.

His journalism appeared regularly in Harper’s GQ, and other national publications. He was the author of several books of nonfiction, including Down by the River.

In more than a dozen groundbreaking books and many articles, Charles Bowden blazed a trail of fire from the deserts of the Southwest to the centers of power where abstract ideas of human nature hold sway — and to the roiling places that give such ideas the lie. He claimed as his turf "our soul history, the germinal material, vast and brooding, that is always left out of more orthodox (all of them) books about America" (Jim Harrison, on Blood Orchid ).

Reviews

[Rich · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was a spectacular book that I do not thinkcould be fully appreciated unless you have some salt on your pelt. Translation a few hard miles in life. Bowden has an ability to write what the reader has experienced. In 150 pages he discusses the loss of his father to cancer. His dads first grand child was born with a hole in her intestine and it was touch and go if the baby, at five days was going to survive. His dad manages to hang on with stage 17 cancer (the end as they say) to receive a phone call that the baby would survive and he died the next morning. In another passage he reflects on those close to him who have committed suicide and the survivors guilt he experiences. Having had this occur it put in perspective my own sense of loss and what if I could have done more? Would they still be among us? Probably not but it haunts you nonetheless. Finally he is just out of college and goes to Mexico on an epic road trip that would make Jake Kerouac envious with a bat shit crazy fuck beast named Sue. I did this same trip in my first year in college, minus the crazy fuck beast. He details the adventure with no punches pulled finally resulting in her being placed on a bus and sent back to the United States on her own, a wise decision. Later she calls him when he is back in Tucson and despite the temptation he resists the power of the pussy and does not call back (wise for a mid-twenties guy). He later spots her doing crazy shit on a street corner in Tucson, and she is fat and disgusting. He later hears she burned her self to death in a very cheap weekly hotel room where she locked the door against life. His sense of loss is palpable even though there is no solution that would have altered her outcome. Like the hard bite of Mezcal with the Scorpion at the bottom of the bottle this is a book best read with the lights on and nice bottle of scotch near by.

[Ham Z · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wrought with human emotion. The shared personal anecdotes of life through changing political and societal troubles are ones we can all see ourselves in— either through similar experience or kinship of the soul. Subtle yet poignant, this work can make your stomach feel sick at the thought of decaying connection to the land, our bodies, and each other. Few things in life are certain, the taste of mezcal being one.

[Andrew Schneider · Rating 4 out of 5]

As a Midwest boy living out his early adult years in the desert, this was a great read.