'Rim to River'

I don't do book reviews on this blog, but I'm making an exception for Tom Zoellner's superb Rim to River: Looking into the Heart of Arizona.

It deserves space on your Arizona history shelf along with Thomas Sheridan's Arizona: A History, Philip VanderMeer's Desert Visions and the Making of Phoenix, William Collins' The Emerging Metropolis: Phoenix: 1944-1973, Marshall Trimble and Jack August's works, and, I hope, my Brief History of Phoenix.

The book has urgency because Arizona matters more than ever. It holds 7.2 million people, compared with the mere 1 million when I was born. It's the third most populous state in the West behind California and Washington, and Phoenix is the fifth most populous city in the nation. Facing a historic drought, state leaders are unwilling to stop the second-biggest driver of the problem: Sprawl. The biggest, climate change, is sure to bring rough justice to the Grand Canyon State. The politics are as extreme as the weather. 

Zoellner does a fine job of explaining the state's majesty and shabbiness, contradictions and constants by literally walking its length, north to south, on the Arizona Trail. The book intersperses history with geography and anecdotes of people he meets, whether in the Navajo Nation or a Mexican food dive in Apache Junction called Los Locos Gringos. He digs at Arizona's heart and soul. 

The reader should know that Zoellner is my friend and former colleague at the Arizona Republic. But, a fifth-generation Arizonan, he's gone far: A master's degree from Dartmouth, now a professor at Chapman University in Orange County, author of such books as Train, The National Road, and Island on Fire. The latter won the National Book Critics Circle Award in 2020, and was a finalist for the (coveted by historians) Bancroft Prize.

By contrast, I studied for my master's in American history from Miami University, an original "public ivy." My emphasis was on the Progressive Era to the Great Depression. But my faculty adviser told me I wrote too clearly to succeed as an academic historian. So I'm still on the newspaper and mystery writing chain gang. But being older than Zoellner, I received a gift he never did: Living in Phoenix when it was American Eden, surrounded by citrus groves, the Japanese flower gardens, farms, and pastures — and multiple trains a day through Union Station. All gone now.

But what remains is evoked with powerful, moving, clear and accessible prose in Rim to River. Walk with him. You won't be disappointed.

 

 

 

 

Comments

[James Becker]

I love Los Locos Gringos! Thanks for the book recommendation. The Arizona Republic had a lot of great writers over the years, that's for sure.

[AzReb]

Just downloaded the book.

Sure would like to download Talton’s new book.

Hope it becomes available before I get the call to Boot Hill.

[Kevin in Preskitt]

I've placed a hold on it at the Prescott Public Library! Thanks for putting this and the other books you mentioned on my radar.

[Helen Highwater]

I thought Karen Fann and Co. had burned all the books in the Prescott library.

[AzRebel]

Just think of the long time Arizona politicians who received communion at the alter of trump and ruined their legacies, past, present and future. What a terrible, terrible waste. Fann was among the worst. From elder stateswoman to trump whore. A worn out dance hall girl out of the old west. Even Big Nose Kate would have turned her back on her.

I would address the male AZ politicians who made the same trump choice, but RC doesn't allow that kind of language.

[Cal Lash]

Bought Toms book to night after listening to a talk by
Dan Flores at Changing Hands.
Flores's new book is
WILD NEW WORLD

[Cal Lash]

Hmm i only posted once?

[Ruben]

I am really enjoying the book.

I call it very putdownable.

Why? Because there are so many facts, stories, locales, incidents that just beg for more research on the nearby ipad. About every 15 minutes I ask my wife "did you know?".

A question for the author, if he is willing to converse with his customer: I looked at the Arizona trail on a map and I was wondering, did the author walk through as many burn areas as it appears? Especially since almost every sky island in AZ has burned in the last 20 years.

I won't go to the burn areas, I want to remember what they looked like.

Great book. Thanks.

[Tom Zoellner]

Answering three comments. 1) James, yes that is a special place. I barfed a plate of their enchiladas and two margaritas in a planter outside the front door. That story is in the book. 2) Cal, thank you! You're in the acknowledgments. 3) Ruben, the major burn areas I walked through included the the one parallel to Hwy 67 north of the North Rim, the Woodbury area in the Superstitions, and the still-gnarly patch left by the Aspen Fire on Mt. Lemmon in 2003, which was one of the last stories I covered for the Republic before quitting.

[Ruben Perez]

Small update to one of Tom's stories in the book.

The Mogollon Monster is now a breakfast item at the Pinon Cafe in Payson. Breakfast hamburger, bacon, eggs, green chili, chili sauce, hash browns.

It won't claw you, but your arteries will feel they are under attack.

If you're a health nut, they have a cinnamon bun that weighs about two pounds and will feed six adults.

Enjoy.

[B. Franklin]

Sooner or later something is going to kill you.

It might as well be a cinnamon bun.

[Ruben]

Great book Tom.

Kinda ended at 75 %, then 25% of acknowledgements.

Possible for a 25% refund??

Maybe send the refund to cal. Hell, he gets mentioned in almost every damn book I read.

[Cal Lash]

Ruben
Thats because
I'm really John Galt.
Cal Lash is my under
covers
alias.

[Helen Highwater]

I like that cal.

"under covers alisa"

You know Shania Twain wrote a song about you,

"Whose Bed Have Your Boots Been Under"

[Helen Highwater]

alias.

[Michael]

"I received a gift he never did: Living in Phoenix when it was American Eden, surrounded by citrus groves, the Japanese flower gardens, farms, and pastures — and multiple trains a day through Union Station. All gone now."

Man this hurts. I grew up in the 90s in North Central & heard stories from dad about 50s and 60s...but even then the canals were flowing, monsoons were booming, everyone had grass & orange/grapefruit trees, it DID cool down at summer at night, the 101 was basically the northern limit, cow pasture smell in Chandler, not much diversity or creepy murals with giant eyes glaring at you saying "WE RISE" or something, it was nice.

[Michael]

Also skies were blue, almost non-stop. I remember being SO BORED with day after day of blue skies during school.

Now every other the day the sky is streaked with chemtrails and its milky iridescent haze

[GWPDA]

We came back down to the States in 1959, Mum choosing Phoenix over Las Vegas for the Madison School District. Lived in far North Central, only a year after Sunnyslope was incorporated into Phoenix. Mum wouldn't let us outside during the tule fogs rolling over the orange groves for fear of Valley Fever - she was right, we never did contract it. It was a good time, and a shocking time for someone who'd left the US when Roosevelt was President and came back to discover that black folks still weren't allowed to sit in the main level of the downtown movie houses and nobody of color was allowed to own property between Baseline and Northern. Phoenix was always a southern town, and a southern town from the '30s. At least for awhile it was great to be an Anglo kid there with no worries and time. Good to be in Tucson.