Bookshelf

BOOKSHELF BY BUDGE RUFFNER

Red Line, by Charles Bowden. W. W. Norton and Company, New York, 1989. 202 pages. $16.95, hardcover.

Hung on a story that retraces the life of a cold-blooded killer is another of Bowden's brooding, impressionistic narratives calculated to reveal the restless qualtity of life in the Southwest. The "red line" of the title is the red part of an automobile's tachometer, the part the needle hits when you floor the gas pedal. It seems to represent the urge to move on, to court danger and get out fast. That urge is usually suppressed and subliminal, like the urge to slam the accelerator during rush hour traffic. But sometimes it surfaces. Bowden possesses a powerful narrative and descriptive talent, and this book is laced with flashes of brilliant prose. Describing a desert setting, he says, "Behind us the mountain looms, a pile of stone that we call an intricate geology in the hope that we can cage it with language. But tonight, as a storm licks at its peaks, the mountain is the very thing that filled our ancestors with fear, the hellish temple where gods roamed, beasts dominated, and devils perched on ledges waiting for our red blood and soft flesh."

This book is not for readers who confine themselves to "happy news." It contains some strong stuff. Bowden writes with passion about the individuals who people today's Southwest and with anger about the often thoughtless destruction of the region's environment. As he moves through Southern California on Interstate 10: "The strip towns now come on - Indio, La Quinta, Palm Desert, Rancho Mirage, Cathedral City, Palm Springs.... I look out the truck window and see the final dreamland of my nation, the place where presidents come like ancient elephants to die amidst used-up comedians, actors, and singers. This is the celebrated spot, the one with the color ads beckoning the rich and bored to come and play in the sun, to leave that martini on the counter of the New York bar, leave it right now and jet out here to do a hot tub with a blonde, always a blonde. The strip cities probably have more blondes having less fun than any place outside of Sweden." The object of the narrator's interest is a man named Nacho, a phenomenon of "the frontier drenched with drugs, money, and death." This interest leads to a long and sometimes frightening quest. For those who are not afraid to take a long hard look at truth, Red Line is an exciting read, full of beautifully worked imagery. "I listen with my mind intent on making a record," Bowden writes. "I do not judge. There is no point. Some things are. Some things exist."

Unless otherwise noted, the books that are reviewed in this column can be ordered through your favorite bookstore. If unavailable, ask your librarian to check Books in Print for the publisher's address and ordering information.

An Inside Look at the ArizonaSonora Desert Museum, by Ruth Kirk. The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum, Tucson, 1990. 48 pages. $8.95, softcover, plus tax and $3.00 postage. Available from the ASDM Gift Shop, Вох 40730, Tucson, AZ 85717.

The Arizona-Sonora Desert Museum is located 14 miles west of Tucson in the desert for which it is named. Four years ago, The Wall Street Journal called it "part zoo, part museum, part botanical garden. Like other such places, it celebrates nature, but is unlike any other in how well it does this."

Ruth Kirk's book, stylishly designed by Christina Watkins, reflects the quality of the institution it presents. Five sections, titled "What is the Sonoran Desert?" "Mountain Islands," "Desert Grasslands," "Desert Flats," and "Museum Programs," describe the museum's environment and function. Kirk explains how the museum cares for its plant and animal life and discusses the way life has adapted to the desert.

The Journey of Fray Marcos de Niza, by Cleve Hallenbeck. Southern Methodist University Press, Dallas, 1987. 198 pages. $29.95 hardcover.

Scholars of the 16th-century Spanish explorations have long debated the identity of the first European to enter what is now Arizona. One prime contender is Marcos de Niza, a Franciscan monk who, in 1539, claimed to have come north from Mexico almost as far as the Little Colorado River. In an elegant reissue of the 1949 original, Southern Methodist University Press has provided an introduction by historian David Weber, with previously unpublished drawings by Hallenbeck and Jose Cisneros, and with the Spanish version of Fray Marcos' relación his own description of the journey that lead to Coronado's explorations of Arizona and New Mexico the following year.