Books - December 2011
Reviewed This Month:• Searching for Beauty• Love & Death • Llano Estacado • Sojourns of the Soul • All Indians Do Not Live in Teepees (or Casinos) |
Guest Review by Patricia West-Barker
Biography
Searching for Beauty: The Life of Millicent Rogers
By Cherie Burns
St. Martin's Press
284 pages, hardcover, $27.99
Millicent Rogers died in 1953 in Taos, at the age of 51. She had married and divorced three times; borne three sons; bought and sold extravagantly appointed homes in New York, Paris, Austria, Virginia, and Jamaica; and assembled an astounding collection of fine and decorative arts.
Dubbed the Standard Oil Heiress by the tabloids—her grandfather was one of the legendary barons of the Gilded Age—Rogers had been followed by photographers and reported on by gossip columnists even before making her formal debut at age 17. Linked romantically in her youth to Edward, Prince of Wales, and the heir to the Italian throne, her later conquests included Ian Fleming, Roald Dahl, James Forrestal (Undersecretary of the Navy during WWII), and Clark Gable.
“She collected men as she did jewelry and dogs,” notes Cherie Burns, author of Searching for Beauty, the first biography of this onetime American icon.
Burns suggests the restless heiress was driven not only by an awareness of her own mortality—a bout of rheumatic fever at age eight had left her with a weakened heart—but also by a drive for creative expression.
“The question of beauty of one kind or another had always driven Millicent,” Burns writes. “She loved beautiful men, beautiful clothes, arresting jewelry, and beautiful houses. … New Mexico offered her another, different kind of beauty; raw and earthy and in a grand scale.” At 45, suffering her first romantic rejection (by Gable) and in failing health, Burns concludes, “She was ready for Taos.”
Had she not been so incredibly wealthy, Burns suggests, Rogers may have become an artist of note. Instead, her most lasting contribution to U.S. culture is in the world of fashion. Friend to legendary fashion editor Diana Vreeland and “patron and muse” to Charles James, America’s first true couturier, Rogers was more than an upper-class clotheshorse.
Noted for her extraordinary sense of style from her early teens—what she wore was as often reported as whom she was with—Rogers is now best remembered as the woman who combined peasant and ethnic elements with high fashion. Her years living in the Austrian Alps brought us Tyrolean jackets and boots. Her move to Taos and adoption of Navajo, Hopi, and Zuni silver jewelry, concho belts, broomstick skirts, and short velvet jackets studded with silver buttons introduced Southwestern style to the United States and to the world.
Journalist Cherie Burns became intrigued with Millicent Rogers when she moved to Taos in 2005 and began taking visitors to the namesake museum established on the outskirts of Taos by Rogers’ youngest son.
Using material sourced largely from period and retrospective newspaper and magazine articles, museum and academic archives, family letters and photo albums, as well as biographies and autobiographies of Rogers’ friends, ex-husbands, and associates in the fashion world, Burns does a masterful job of following the trajectory of Rogers’ public life. (Interviews with Rogers’ last surviving son initiated Burns’ quest, but his support was withdrawn in favor of another, authorized biography that never materialized.)
The Taos chapters, based heavily on the journals of painter Lady Dorothy Brett, add particular detail and poignancy to the last years of Rogers’ life: camping trips in Indian country, parties at her home, her failing health, and growing interest in spiritual issues—all offer glimpses of the woman behind the headlines.
Patricia West-Barker publishes TheZenchilada.com, an online magazine of food and culture. She lives in Santa Fe.
Book Briefs by Ashley M. Biggers
Love & Death: Greatest Hits
By Renée Gregorio, Joan Logghe, and Miriam Sagan
Tres Chicas Books
190 pages, paperback, $15
When Santa Fe poets Renée Gregorio, Joan Logghe, and Miriam Sagan founded the collaborative press Tres Chicas Books in 2003, they aimed to foster local talent. They’ve done just that with excellent previous books like The Man Who Gave His Wife Away, by Tom Ireland (2010), and The Sound a Raven Makes, by Swanie Morris, Michelle Holland, and Catherine Ferguson (2006). Here, the trio spotlight their own fine work with a collection of 97 poems in which they share their worst setbacks, most passionate encounters, and bravest comebacks. Just as their publishing house has developed from their collaborative efforts, so does this book. “This is selected from three bodies of work to create not just a book, but a sense of community,” they write. “Writing may be done in isolation, but this is an expression from the collective. The poems are interconnected because we are. It’s this interconnectedness that makes living in New Mexico so rich and alive.”
Still, each poet’s voice does rise independently, as in Gregorio’s poignant interludes (“Your bare hand / holding space between us. I match you finger for finger”); in Logghe’s absorbing imagery; and in Sagan’s observations that stop you in your tracks (“this love I use daily / like salt / like soap / the more I use it / the less there is”). Although this poetry may resonate with many people, women especially will find themselves murmuring in agreement at just how right these three get it.
Llano Estacado: An Island in the Sky
Edited by Stephen Bogener and William Tydeman, Introduction by Barry Lopez
Texas Tech University Press
192 pages, hardcover, $45
The Llano Estacado, made famous as conquistador Francisco Vasquez de Coronado’s “staked plains,” today comprises 33 counties in West Texas and four in eastern New Mexico—lands used for farming, ranching, and oil drilling. The collection of essays and photographs in this handsome coffee-table book captures the wonder, tough local culture, and land management of these near-featureless plains. Although the book emphasizes Texas (and rightfully so), images of New Mexico crop up throughout—as in the photograph of an isolated apricot tree in Lingo by Peter Brown, and that of the Western Heritage Day Parade crowd in Portales by Miguel Gandert. Gandert captures the spirit of his images and the book as a whole when he writes, “As I drive across the staked plain of the Llano Estacado, I feel small; my car is a red boat in the middle of a vast ocean. The calm horizon stretches before me, the grasses ripple like waves. … But it is that horizon, the ever-changing light, and the imprints of people that combine to create the depths that dominate the photographs I have made here, reminding me once again that the Llano Estacado is a place of mystery and beauty.” Residents and visitors alike will enjoy this diverse collection that highlights this seldom-celebrated area of the state.
Sojourns of the Soul: One Woman's Journey Around the World and into her Truth
By Dana Micucci
Quest Books
288 pages, paperback, $16.95
Travel is a restorative, but it is also an opportunity to broaden our horizons and delve into our most authentic selves. As New Mexico resident Dana Micucci observes, “In a society shaken by uncertain times, the search for meaning has become increasingly urgent and necessary. Travel is one of the most powerful ways to deepen that search. It broadens our understanding of other cultures, beliefs, and wisdom traditions and teaches us ultimately about ourselves—what attracts and repels us, what we want, who we are.”
In Sojourns of the Soul, we travel with Micucci to Australia, Cambodia, Egypt, Tibet, the Yucatán, Peru, and New Mexico. But we also accompany her on a “souljourn,” taking in the spiritual lessons of each location. Micucci’s journey tracks with the seven spiritual centers of the body called chakras. Her trip to New Mexico chronicles a curative visit to Christ in the Desert Monastery. Though reluctant at first, she delves into the monastery’s life, from uplifting hikes to the ritual of prayer. Micucci’s journey will inspire your own—whether it takes you around the world, or just to New Mexico for a bit of our healing magic.
All Indians Do Not Live in Teepees (or Casinos)
By Catherine C. Robbins
Bison Books/University of Nebraska Press
408 pages, paperback, $26.95 
Author Catherine C. Robbins drew the title of this book—All Indians Do Not Live in Teepees (or Casinos)—from a conversation with Zonnie Gorman, a Diné. From the outset, this title establishes the trajectory of the book: A casino may have supplanted a teepee as the icon of Native America, but neither stereotype is entirely accurate, nor does either represent the diverse mosaic of Native life. This look inside contemporary Native culture begins with the 1999 repatriation of ancestral remains to New Mexico’s Pueblo peoples. (More than 2,000 bodies were excavated during an archaeological expedition at Pecos Pueblo; the return of these remains marked the largest repatriation in American history.) Central to this process were issues of identity, relationships of Native peoples to outside cultures, and their ability to carry on ancient practices today. The event launches Robbins’ exploration of economic development, urbanization, arts, and health care in Native communities. Her writing bears all the hallmarks of a seasoned journalist—deep background research conveyed in a compelling manner, a well-constructed narrative, and, above all, a devotion to portraying accurately the stories and voices of the people she interviewed.
