Why Charles Bowden is the most kick-ass living writer

I won't even offer any teasers from this article, because I'd just have to re-post the whole thing. If you read just one thing this week, make it this: "Charles Bowden on The War Next Door," from High Country News.

Here Bowden is interviewed about his most recent book, Some of the Dead are Still Breathing. 

Out of the land of the ice and snow ...

My own short-term immigrant song ... a temporary immigrant to New Mexico.

A weekend venture to Grants to visit my parents was a startlingly refreshing respite from the full-bore winter wonderland we've been living in for the past couple of months. Once south of Farmington, only the islands in the sky like Taylor Mountain and the Zuni Mountains were thoroughly white washed. And I was surprised to find how welcome that experience was -- driving along with my window down, the badlands of Dinetah sere and sprawling and blessedly bare.

And my parents are happy to know -- I think -- that I haven't changed much, as I slept outside in their backyard every night, in February cold (but not as cold as Durango). But I could not not take in the February New Mexican sky, the winter desert air, the train in the distance in the middle of the night ... 

And no snow, for a little while. 

 

Rio and I both hung our heads out the window sniffing out hints of spring ... 

 

 

Mount Taylor still hibernates in full winter behind economically hibernating downtown Grants .....

Remembering what bare and breathing earth looks like, near my parents' house ....

And then, back to the land of the ice and snow ...