Dry River: Stories of Life, Death, and Redemption on the Santa Cruz

by Ken Lamberton

Poet and writer Alison Deming once noted, “In the desert, one finds the way by tracing the aftermath of water . . . ”

Here, Ken Lamberton finds his way through a lifetime of exploring southern Arizona’s Santa Cruz River. This river—dry, still, and silent one moment, a thundering torrent of mud the next—serves as a reflection of the desert around a hint of water on parched sand, a path to redemption across a thirsty landscape.

With his latest book, Lamberton takes us on a trek across the land of three nations—the United States, Mexico, and the Tohono O’odham Nation—as he hikes the river’s path from its source and introduces us to people who draw identity from the river—dedicated professionals, hardworking locals, and the author’s own family. These people each have their own stories of the river and its effect on their lives, and their narratives add immeasurable richness and depth to Lamberton’s own astute observations and picturesque descriptions.

Unlike books that detail only the Santa Cruz’s decline, Dry River offers a more balanced, at times even optimistic, view of the river that ignites hope for reclamation and offers a call to action rather than indulging in despair and resignation. At once a fascinating cultural history lesson and an important reminder that learning from the past can help us fix what we have damaged, Dry River is both a story about the amazing complexity of this troubled desert waterway and a celebration of one man’s lifelong journey with the people and places touched by it.

288 pages, Paperback

First published March 15, 2011

About the author

When I published my first book Wilderness and Razor Wire (Mercury House, 2000), the San Francisco Chronicle called it an "…entirely original: an edgy, ferocious, subtly complex collection of essays….” The book won the 2002 John Burroughs Medal for outstanding nature writing. I have published four books and more than a hundred articles and essays in places like the Los Angeles Times, Arizona Highways, the Gettysburg Review, and The Best American Science and Nature Writing 2000. In 2007, I won a Soros Justice Fellowship for my fourth book, Time of Grace: Thoughts on Nature, Family, and the Politics of Crime and Punishment (University of Arizona Press, 2007). My latest book is about Arizona’s "Dry River," the Santa Cruz.

In 2015 the University of Arizona will publish my sixth book, Chasing Arizona: One Man’s Yearlong Obsession with the Grand Canyon State. It is a 20,000-mile joyride that takes the reader across the state to 52 destinations in 52 weeks. I hold degrees in biology and creative writing from the University of Arizona and live with my wife in a 1890s stone cottage near Bisbee. Visit my website at: www.kenlamberton.com