The Best from the Best

Clear some space on your bookshelf as six of our state's best authors name the New Mexico books that have influenced them. At the top of the list: A collection of moving environmental essays, a novel with a conscience, a historical diary, and three Southwestern classics. As told to Arin McKenna and Wolf Schneider

Alisa Valdes-Rodriguez

Bio in Brief: Albuquerquean and author of the
chick-lit novels The Dirty Girls Social Club (2003)
and Playing with Boys (2004)

Recommends: If Mountains Die: A New Mexico Memoir (1979) by John Nichols

 

 

“I love all of John’s books. This particular book, a collection of essays and photographs, I read in college in Boston. It connected me to home and to a greater cause—the environment. It woke me up to the interconnectedness of all life on earth, and the importance of preserving the natural world. I was so inspired by this book, I wrote to John to ask if he’d mentor me. He agreed. I remember when I was in college, I wrote to him that I could not afford a word processor, and he sent me a check for $800. He was making movies and doing well. That was the machine I used to write my first novel, about a jazz musician in Boston. When I was younger, I thought him a very sexy writer—very manly, very insightful about women. I liked his romantic scenes a lot. I liked his boldness. He is very much like Hemingway in this regard: a man’s man, a hockey player, a swaggering intellectual. As I’ve gotten older, it’s the wordcraft that mesmerizes me: his pacing, timing, rhythm, and punch lines. Consistent throughout has been John’s heart—his empathy, love for people and nature, and his humor. We became very close. I’ll leave it at that.”—Wolf Schneider

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Michael McGarrity

Bio in Brief: Santa Fean and author of the Kevin Kerney mystery series

Recommends: Red Sky at Morning (1968) by Richard Bradford

 

 

 

“It’s a wonderful coming-of-age story that freezes Santa Fe at a point in time when it was a special small town. [Bradford’s] ability to evoke a place was really great in that book. It wasn’t sweeping, but it was detailed and very descriptive. It really touched me with its humor, and he drew his characters beautifully. I tell everyone who comes to Santa Fe that this is a book they need to read. I met him later when he was working as a medical transcriptionist at St. Vincent Hospital; his life had fallen apart big time. He also wrote So Far from Heaven. I dedicated my book Under the Color of Law to my three favorite New Mexico writers: Eugene Manlove Rhodes, Richard Bradford, and Tony Hillerman.”—W.S.

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Tony Hillerman

Bio in Brief: Hillerman's mysteries set on the Navajo Nation celebrated the land and culture he loved, and lured droves of readers to the Four Corners area. Fortunately for us, the Albuquerque resident was able to speak with New Mexico Magazine before his death in October 2008.

Recommends: Book of the Hopi (1963) by Frank Waters

“[Waters] was intrigued by the Native American cultureS, and I grew up with those cultures. I was surrounded in my boyhood [in Oklahoma] by the Potawatomi and Cree, you know. Once I found out about the Navajo, I thought, ‘Wow, this is deep and interesting.’ So I made a point of learning more. I talked to Frank and I read a lot of anthropology books at the UNM library. When I moved to Albuquerque, I went to see Frank. He had an upstairs office. I walked in there and asked a bunch of questions. All of a sudden his telephone rang, and he said, ‘Oh yeah, George, just a minute, I’ve got a visitor.’ I said, ‘I can be leaving.’ Frank said, ‘Tony, I installed that phone like that. I make it ring by stepping on this pedal under my desk, you see. If you’re going to be a serious writer, you better get one like this, because you’ll get interrupted a lot.’”—W.S

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John Nichols

Bio in brief: Taos resident and author of The Milagro Beanfield War (1974), which was made into a film by Robert Redford and is considered a Southwestern classic

Recommends: Mother Tongue (1994) by Demetria Martínez

 

“I always tell people I never met a book I didn’t like—you know, like Will Rogers. And it’s true. I never like listing the Top 10. You should list the top thousand. My favorite New Mexican books were written by Simon Ortiz, Rudy [Rudolfo] Anaya, Denise Chávez, N. Scott Momaday, Ana Castillo, Richard Bradford, Nasario García, Marc Simmons, [Professor G. Emlen] “Em” Hall, and many others. I can say that Mother Tongue, by Demetria Martínez, is certainly one of my favorites. It is precise and beautifully written, very powerful, emotionally and politically. I have reread it many times, and it always inspires me to try and write clearly and concisely while sustaining within the work a viable conscience. The book is a gem about love and social commitment.”  —Arin McKenna

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Judith Van Gieson

Bio in brief: Albuquerque-based author whose acclaimed Claire Reynier and Neil Hamel mystery series have both been Independent Mystery Booksellers Association bestsellers.

Recommends: A Thief of Time (1988) by Tony Hillerman

 

 

“I’ve read Tony’s books from the beginning, but thought he reached a new level of mastery in A Thief of Time. I admire the way he worked anthropology and the theft of Anasazi relics into the plot. I started writing my first mystery, North of the Border, when I was living in Santa Fe. It came out in ’88, the same year A Thief of Time was published. By then I had moved to Boston in search of a more secure income. I had the pleasure of meeting Tony at a book signing. He inspired me to believe I could make a living at this business, and to move back to New Mexico and write full-time. One of the things I learned from A Thief of Time is that mysteries can be so much more than fiction. It opened my mind to the variety of subjects I could write about, and to the value of research. I reread A Thief of Time just to remind myself how good mystery writing can be.”—A.M.

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Hampton Sides

Bio in brief: Santa Fean whose most recent book, Blood and Thunder: An Epic of the American West (2006), as named one of Time magazine's 10 Best Books of 2006. It is currently under film development by Steven Spielberg's DreamWorks Pictures.

Recommends: Down the Santa Fe Trail and into Mexico: The Diary of Susan Shelby Magoffin, 1846-1847 (1926) by Susan Shelby Magoffin

 

“Susan Shelby Magoffin was a very dedicated, disciplined diarist. Among western historians, this is considered a classic. Shelby Magoffin and her husband, a veteran Santa Fe Trail merchant, had just married and were on the Santa Fe Trail when they were overtaken and engulfed by nearly 2,000 [U.S.] troops on their way to conquer New Mexico during the Mexican-American War. Because she was the only American woman in the midst of this, she ends up falling in with all the important players in the American Army, and, most particularly, General Stephen Watts Kearny. She writes about all of this with considerable amounts of wit and charm. When I wrote Blood and Thunder, I kept finding myself going back to original sources—the diaries and the military reports written at the time by participants. They formed the spine of my book. This one was the best written, most vivid, and most interesting.”—A.M.

 

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Arin McKenna is a freelance writer who has won national awards and lives in Nambé.

Wolf Schneider has been editor in chief of the Santa Fean, editor of Living West, and consulting editor at Southwest Art.