Sampling the Sands of the Desert Southwest

LEGENDS OF THE AMERICAN DESERT: Sojourns in the Greater Southwest by Alex Shoumatoff (Knopf, $30).

Writers have been panning the desert sands a long while now, searching for words to describe the gloried and beleaguered Southwest. Now Vanity Fair staffer Alex Shoumatoff takes after the place with a hydraulic dredge: scooping up a dense and ambitious mountain of loose aggregate.

Separated into component parts, this book is dynamic history. As personal travel, unfortunately, it’s rather bland. As a sampler of eccentric Southwestern delights, it produces genuine nuggets. As murder mystery, it is unsatisfying. As treatise on social justice, it is conventional and, dare we complain, incomplete.

Whimsically organized, “Legends of the American Desert” shuffles the then and the now; mixes small vignettes here with long inquiries there. The reader bounds from sidewinders to conquistadors, from chile peppers to the siege of Indian culture, from the espionage case of U.S. Marine Clayton Lonetree to the unsolved death of environmental activist Leroy Jackson.

We’re thankfully spared ponderous transitions to tie all this together, but still, there’s no escaping the sensation that these weighty 516 pages read like, well . . . 516 small-type pages from a writer whose long labors left him smothered in his material. Everything Shoumatoff gathers, it seems, we are to clean from our plates too.

New Yorker Shoumatoff brings a New Yorker’s attitude to the West. And that’s not necessarily a flaw. OK, maybe he could stop calling California “the Coast.” But his eye is fresh. And he, better than most, insists that we regard the Southwest as unique, not just for its topography but also for its past. If we’re willing to work for it.

GO GIRL! The Black Woman’s Book of Travel & Adventure edited by Elaine Lee (Eighth Mountain, $17.95, paperback).

Sorry, Girl, but I’m going to blow the secret. I know you’re going to like this book. And I know you’re going to feel special about it because it was done by your sisters, and done so well. It’s the kind of book that you want to pass along by word of mouth because your friends are going to get such a kick out of it and you had it first. And now, here I am blabbing about it to everyone, including guys, even white guys; to all those who say the purpose of travel is to understand.

Why? Because I’ve gained ground in the last four hours, and I haven’t traveled out of my chair.

I’ve been eavesdropping as Andre Lorde casually visits Virgin Gorda from her home in St. Croix only to have her tourist card stamped “no admittance.” Not with hair like that! I’ve eavesdropped as Maya Angelou resorts to a little white lie to pass herself off as an African in Africa. Only one child? Keep trying harder, sister. I’ve been eavesdropping quite a bit here . . . and I’ve been touched, entertained and enlightened with 52 stories that illuminate our world far beyond geography.

Editor Elaine Lee calls this a “Black Woman’s Book.” Indeed. But it goes on my holiday gift list as a treat for others too. Nothing fosters understanding like a few thousand miles of following closely in someone else’s footsteps, particularly if it’s a worthwhile journey. Bravo.

Quick trips:

THE TELLER OF TALES: In Search of Robert Louis Stevenson, Literary Roads by Hunter Davies (Interlink, $16, paperback). Among many things, Robert Louis Stevenson gave us this lasting advice: “To travel hopefully is a better thing than to arrive.” Here is a workmanlike travel biography of one of the 19th century’s great nomadic writers. From Scotland to California, from France to the South Seas: back then and right now.

VENICE & THE VENETO: Eyewitness Guide, primary contributors Susie Boulton and Christopher Catling (DK, $22.95, paperback, photographs, maps). Summer crowds are down and the timid have been scared away. It’s a good time to contemplate Italy. These Eyewitness Guides--full of color photographs, cutaway graphics and superb detail maps--are especially suited for first timers trying to picture a place. This is a razzle-dazzle, full-service Venice guidebook.

THE BAJA CATCH: Fishing, Travel & Remote Camping Manual for Baja California by Neil Kelly and Gene Kira (A&O;, $21.95, paperback, photos, maps). This has been a meager season for good Baja guidebooks. Finally, here’s one for those who fish and camp. It might also serve the resort traveler with excellent coastal maps.

Books to Go appears the second and fourth week of every month.