America, New Mexico

... is one of the attractions of living in what is patronizingly referred to as "the fly over zone." One that natives, and even some semi-natives, do not want broadcast widely, hoping still to avoid becoming another Phoenix, content with a humble two million in the entire state. So, it is fitting that Robert Leonard Reid should start his wonderful book on New Mexico with an epigraph from Thomas Hardy's classic book. Reid possesses a solid erudition which is reflected in this tour of the highs and lows of life in the "Land of Enchantment." There are epigraphs from Rainer Maria Rilke, Jules Verne, Walt Whitman, and a spectrum of others, as well as references from the wider sphere of literature that are embedded in his stories and observations. I particularly liked his analogy with Antoine de Saint-Exupéry's words concerning the hardening of clay, in reference to youth losing its potential. It is in his chapter where he describes how Benny Esquivel, age 14, becomes a quadriplegic in a gun fight, here in Albuquerque. Reid's prose burns: "Indeed, it's a rare street where one feels entirely safe walking after dark. The population swells. Competition for jobs and decent housing intensifies. Cultures clash. The value of becoming rich and acquiring products proves unequal to the challenge of lifting the city's sights--and the nation's. Rather the opposite occurs; it poisons the spirit. Families disintegrate, education collapses, hatred intensifies. Suddenly ten-year-olds are carrying guns. This strikes me as an entirely understandable response to the bitterness and disillusionment young people must feel when they come face-to-face with the fact that we have failed to provide them with meaningful goals and not only the hope but the means of reaching them. The sky-shattering potential of these wondrous creatures evanesces..." Paul Goodman could not have said it better. And in the 11 years since Reid has written these words the problem has only intensified. Such passages ensure that "America, New Mexico" never makes the "Must Read" list of the Chamber of Commerce nor the Tourism Board. But Reid does not simply report from the state's largest city; he ranges throughout America's fifth largest state, visiting Antelope Wells in the boot heel, as well as Clayton, in the far northeast corner. He also visits the Ghost Ranch, and covers the Georgia O'Keefe legend; Bosque Redondo, where the Navojos were interned, and all too many died; Santa Fe, and thoughtfully reports on the bumper sticker that reflects much of the sentiment of the rest of the state: "I don't care how they do it in Santa Fe"; and Truchas, deep in the Sangre de Cristos (Blood of Christ) mountains, where the "fierce Catholicism" of the Penitente Brotherhood is practiced. In each he captures essential aspects in telling vignettes, and they range from Andy Rooney's reported racism towards the Indians, to the fact that the US Air Force once dropped an atomic bomb on Albuquerque, which, sure enough,

Open your heart, your mind, and your ears to this almost lyrical work by Robert Leonard Reid as you explore beautiful and quite possibly unique New Mexico either firsthand or vicariously. Not as thoroughly exploratory, meticulous, and encyclopedic as Timothy Egan's Pacific Northwest book(s), not as critical and pessimistic as Robert Kaplan, and not as negative as Paul Theroux---Mr. Reid is of a different writing caliber. It is delightfully insightful, at times painfully verbose and overdescriptive, but his book on this different part of America is a pleasurable experience nonetheless for resident, visitor, or armchair traveler.