A PRICKLY POINT

I was glad that you gave so much space, and so prominently, to Charles Bowden, one of the best writers this country has ever produced. If Bowden hasn’t made it to the general public yet, it’s only because most book reviewers think that New York nightclub trendoids and Malibu teen-agers whining about where their next snort of coke is coming from are more important than people struggling to find where their next glass of water is coming from.

I fell off my chair laughing over an article Bowden wrote in Bicycling magazine several years ago about a 325-mile, 24-hour race in which he participated, and since then have read his political, nature, adventure essays, book reviews, newspaper articles, and everything else I could find. But even for someone familiar with his work, Bowden hits new notes in “Mezcal”: It’s a pantingly erotic, wildly funny, tragic personal and historical chronicle of the baby boom generation.

It’s not a long book; none of his are. This is fortunate for the reader. Like mezcal, Bowden’s prose is potent: sip, don’t gulp.

Bowden was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize for the article he wrote after walking--in the heat of mid-summer, at great risk--the route that the illegal aliens take from Mexico into southern Arizona, across the black volcanic Sierra Pinacata, an area so forbidding that archeologists are reluctant to enter it. (This article, in altered form, is the last chapter of “Blue Desert”).

About Bowden’s second book (he’s written five, not four) “Street Signs Chicago” (1981, Chicago Review Press) written with organizer Lew Kreinberg, Studs Terkel wrote: “This book has the eloquence of a fine hot-to-the-touch novel. It has the power of a good heavyweight’s wallop. It knocked me out.” “Street Signs” covers every crazy from the street to the government, and ends with the most riveting description of a city’s sewer system since “Les Miserables.” Bowden can make anything fascinating.

But try to find these excellent books in Los Angeles. I’ve taken to ordering them from Singing Wind Bookshop, P.O. Box 2197, Benson, Ariz. 85602 (602/586-2425). The owner is Winn Bundy, a trained librarian who runs the bookstore out of her ranch house. She is a bridge to Bowden, this genius with a vox clamante in deserto .

LINDA CIVITELLO

CULVER CITY