Revenge of the Saguaro

By Tom Miller, Peter Hamill
Paperback: $14.95

Who killed that saguaro outside Phoenix? What is the sound of one billboard falling? Cochise who?

Description

Tom Miller’s Southwest is a vortex of cockfights and cantinas, of black velvet paintings and tacky bolo ties, of eco-militants, border-crossers, and eccentric characters whose outlook is as spare and elemental as the desert that surrounds them. This is Miller’s turf. With wit and insight, he reveals how the clichés of romanticism and capitalism have run amuck in his homeland. When a saguaro cactus outside Phoenix kills its own assassin, it becomes clear that no other guide to the Southwest manifests such a clear moral vision while reveling in the joy of this magnificent land and its people. Originally published by National Geographic as Jack Ruby’s Kitchen Sink, it received the Gold Award for Best Travel Book in 2000 from the Society of American Travel Writers.

About the Creators

Tom Miller

Tom Miller is the award-winning author of ten books, including the travel classics On the Border, The Panama Hat Trail, and Trading With the Enemy: A Yankee Travels Through Castro’s Cuba. His articles have appeared in The New York Times, The Washington Post, Smithsonian, Rolling Stone, and LIFE, among other publications. Miller lives in Arizona. For more information please go to www.tommillerbooks.com.

Peter Hamill

Reviews

  • "[Miller is] a superb reporter and slyly funny stylist. This is a compulsively readable book by one of our best non-fiction writers."

    - San Francisco Chronicle Book Review
  • "Tom Miller knows his Southwest, and in [this book] he takes us on a tour of some of its quirky, funky characters and out-of-the-way places."

    - Los Angeles Times
  • "Miller is as quirky and delightful as ever, treating the Southwest as a vast midden from which he plucks many odorous but tasty treasures. The fun, as usual, comes from watching Tom digest."

    - Larry McMurtry
  • "Tom Miller loves the American Southwest the way a man loves a wayward, difficult woman, accepting her trashy, all-too-interesting history while knowing the heartbreaking truth. A rueful, wonderful, highly personal guide."

    - Marin Cruz Smith
  • "Residents, potential visitors, and armchair travelers alike will be captivated by Miller's informative and often humorous book, in which the romance and reality of the Southwest are intermingled within a fine narrative."

    - Library Journal
  • "Imaginative, inventive, witty. . .Miller has written a wonder-filled book."

    - The Salt Lake Tribune
  • "Miller writes with passion about the region and relays it with as much skill as John Steinbeck."

    - Siouxland Weekly

Paperback

  • ISBN 9781933693606
  • Price $14.95
  • Publication Date Mar 01, 2010
  • Trim Size 8.75 × 5.63 × 0.8 in
  • Weight 0.75 lbs
  • Page Count 256
  • Interests

  • Imprint Cinco Puntos Press
  • Audience Adult
  • BISAC Category 1 TRAVEL / Essays & Travelogues
  • BISAC Category 2 HISTORY / United States / State & Local / Southwest (AZ, NM, OK, TX)
  • BISAC Category 3 TRAVEL / Special Interest / Literary
  • Themes Informational / Expository Nonfiction, Nonfiction
  • Reading Levels

  • Guided Reading Adult
  • Interest Level Adult
  • Reading Level Adult
  • This Book is Included in These Collections:

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