The Charles Bowden Reader

From his first book, Killing the Hidden Waters, to his most recent, Murder City: Cuidad Juárez and the Global Economy’s New Killing Fields, Charles Bowden has been sounding an alarm about the rapacious appetites of human beings and the devastation we inflict on the natural world we arrogantly claim to possess. His own corner of the world, the desert borderlands between the United States and Mexico, is Bowden’s prime focus, and through books, magazine articles, and newspaper journalism he has written eloquently about key issues roiling the border—drug-related violence that is shredding civil society, illegal immigration and its toll on human lives and the environment, destruction of fragile ecosystems as cities sprawl across the desert and suck up the limited supplies of water. This anthology gathers the best and most representative writing from Charles Bowden’s entire career. It includes excerpts from his major books—Killing the Hidden Waters, Blue Desert, Desierto: Memories of the Future, Blood Orchid, Blues for Cannibals, A Shadow in the City, Inferno, Exodus, and Some of the Dead Are Still Breathing—as well as articles that appeared in Esquire, Harper’s, Mother Jones, and other publications. Imbued with Bowden’s distinctive rhythm and lyrical prose, these pieces also document his journey of exploration—a journey guided, in large part, by the question posed in Some of the Dead Are Still Breathing: “How do we live a moral life in a culture of death?” This is no metaphor; Bowden is referring to the people, history, animals, and ecosystems that are being extinguished in the onslaught of twenty-first-century culture. The perfect introduction to his work, The Charles Bowden Reader is also essential for those who know him well and want to see the whole panorama of his passionate, intense writing.

Table of Contents:
Foreword by Jim HarrisonIntroduction by the EditorsPart IComing to Arizona, from Arizona HighwaysBats, from Blue DesertSpeech Excerpt from North Dakota Geological ConferenceExcerpt from Killing the Hidden WatersSnaketime, from Wild EarthExcerpt from InfernoPart IIOne Thing in Common: Sadness, from the Tucson CitizenExcerpt from "Using Our Children for Sex," from the Tucson CitizenRape, from the Tucson CitizenTorch Song, from Harper'sPart IIIExcerpt from the 2008 Photography Exhibit "The History of the Future"While You Were Sleeping, from Harper'sDon Francisco Must Be Stopped, from USA TodayExcerpt from ExodusOutback Nightmares and Refugee Dreams, from Mother JonesPart IVExcerpt from Shadow in the CityThe Pariah, from EsquireIke and Lyndon, from Harper'sExtraordinary RenditionEpilogue on Edward AbbeyThe Bone Garden of Desire, from EsquirePart VLetter to Barbara HoulbergExcerpt from Some of the Dead Are Still BreathingExcerpt from Desierto: Memories of the FutureExcerpt from Blues for CannibalsExcerpt from Killing the Hidden WatersExcerpt from Blood OrchidExcerpt from Blues for CannibalsExcerpt from Desierto: Memories of the FutureExcerpt from InfernoAfterword: Excerpt from Some of the Dead Are Still Breathing

About the Author :
CHARLES BOWDENBowden’s recent books include Dreamland: The Way Out of Juárez; A Shadow in the City: Confessions of an Undercover Drug Warrior; Down by the River: Drugs, Money, Murder, and Family; Blues for Cannibals: Notes from Underground; Blood Orchid