Edge of Taos Desert: An Escape to Reality

by Mabel Dodge Luhan

In 1917 Mabel Sterne, patron of the arts and spokeswoman for the New York avant-garde, came to the Southwest seeking a new life. This autobiographical account, long out-of-print, of her first few months in New Mexico is a remarkable description of an Easterner's journey to the American West. It is also a great story of personal and philosophical transformation. The geography of New Mexico and the culture of the Pueblo Indians opened a new world for Mabel. She settled in Taos immediately and lived there the rest of her life. Much of this book describes her growing fascination with Antonio Luhan of Taos Pueblo, whom she subsequently married. Her descriptions of the appeal of primitive New Mexico to a world-weary New Yorker are still fresh and moving.


-I finished it in a state of amazed revelation . . . it is so beautifully compact and consistent. . . . It is going to help many another woman and man to 'take life with the talons' and carry it high.---Ansel Adams

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography, Biography Memoir, History

364 pages, Paperback

First published April 1, 1937

About the author

Mabel Evans Dodge Sterne Luhan was an American patron of the arts, who was particularly associated with the Taos art colony.

Reviews

[Katy]

I read "Edge of the Taos Desert" after visiting northern New Mexico recently. We stayed in a B&B that grew out of a home where Mabel Dodge Luhan lived when she first arrived in Taos, adjacent to the Taos Pueblo, with a view of Taos mountain. I intended to skim the book, but after reading a few pages of the beautifully written memoir, I was hooked. Mabel Dodge Luhan wrote three previous memoirs of her life before Taos, when she was a wealthy woman first living in Buffalo, Italy, and NYC. She had an entourage of radicals and intellectuals around her constantly(one of her former lovers was John Reed,the role played by Warren Beatty in the film "Reds").
Luhan came to Taos in 1917 from the east,seeking to change her life. This book is her impression(written in 1937) of that transformative time in her life. She began to visit the Taos Pueblo and made friends with the women and girls by teaching them knitting. Most importantly, she met Antonio Luhan, a Taos Indian, and their relationship develops in a subtle, non-verbal way. They become "soul-mates" in the truest sense, and she built an adobe house with him and remained in Taos for the rest of her life.There are descriptions of wagon and horse rides into the mountains, and south to the Santo Domingo Pueblo. And an amazing story about her treatment with "medicine"(peyote) by her friend(future husband), Tony Luhan.
Luhan also famously hosted many well known artists and intellectuals in her Taos home, including D.H. Lawrence, Willa Cather, Ansel Adams, and Georgia O'Keeffe. But this book is about her personal and philosophical transformation, the beauty of the high desert, and her deep connection to the Pueblo Indians. It is a book that took me away to another place and time, and I will read it again. The sequel to this memoir is "Winter in Taos", the last in the series of Luhan's memoirs.

[EK McClelion]

Beautiful thoughtful writing. Bedtime reading book

[Elly Sands]

I totally lost myself in this book. I loved it. Living in the Southwest for over 20 years and loving it, I could relate to the author. Mabel Dodge Luhan, a renown artist's patron and elitist, moved to Taos,N.M. in 1917 seeking a "real life." She found it in the magnificent landscape and the Pueblo Indians,one of whom she married. This book is filled with her philosophical thoughts and although sometimes overly flowery I still found them poignant. This is a book I will probably read again. I like where it takes me.

[Susan Dahle]

It's a well written memoir. If you are interested in southwestern history and culture, art, the development of Taos NM (as I am) then I think you will find it worth reading. If not then you will probably be bored with it.

[Robert Vaughan]

A fascinating story about a woman who passed a legacy on, creating such a vibrant life carved out of the American West. You can feel her presence on the campus of the Mabel Dodge Luhan House. Just visit it to find out!

[Phil]

In Taos, we visited the Mabel Dodge Luhan House, once a gathering place for such luminaries as Ansel Adams, Willa Cather, Martha Graham, Robinson Jeffers, and Georgia O’Keeffe. In more recent years, actor Dennis Hopper owned it, but now it’s a nationally registered historical site and a retreat and conference center. To learn more about the woman whose personal force created this magnetic place a century ago, I bought her book about her first year in Taos—1917-18—when she was approaching the age of 40.

Consider the time. World War. Influenza pandemic. Lost generation. Mabel came from the family of a wealthy banker in Buffalo. Educated in an elite Episcopal school, her writing demonstrates an easy familiarity with biblical imagery and phrases despite her apparent disregard for Christianity. She had married a succession of three wealthy men. Rehabbed a huge house, a money pit, in Florence, Italy. Hosted intellectuals and artists at an estate on the Hudson. As John Collier, Jr., says in the Foreword (written in 1989), the background of the life she describes in this 1937 memoir entails “the confused revolutionaries and artists who constitute her early history, and with whom Mabel shared the struggle to recover lost humanism and elemental reason, which she finally perceived in the primeval Indian world.” (xxv)

She felt compelled to reject “the decadence of the Old World—the East Coast and Europe,” according to biographer Lois Palken Rudnick. (Introduction, xiii) The first half of her life was, in her view, filled with artificiality, inauthenticity, hyperactivity, and materialism—that is, with attempts to escape from reality—in contrast to the new life she finds in Taos on the edge of the desert—an escape to reality.

The turning point, the transformation, is not sudden, although it begins with immediate fascination and quickly evolves into infatuation with the people of the pueblo. She feels love at first sight with the place and the native people, particularly Antonio (Tony) Lujan. In him she perceives Reality—unaffected, unpretentious, and beyond written, spoken, or artistic expression. Gradually, through the seasons of the year, her infatuation develops into respect, and eventually reverence, not only for Tony, but for the ways of the pueblo Indians. It must be said, however, that she idealizes their culture by avoiding any mention of their power struggles or conflicts.

Predictably, the changes in Mabel’s values lead her away from her husband Maurice Sterne as she is ever more attracted to Tony. When Maurice follows through with their original plan to return to New York, she stays behind and starts her new life with Tony in the house he has constructed for her, the house we visited. They marry in 1923, after the end of the narrative in this memoir.

Mabel was already a syndicated journalist and patron of the arts before she moved to Taos, so it’s not surprising that she hosted notable writers and artists throughout the second half of her life. It is interesting to read her lament of the imposition of Anglo education upon Indigenous children, ruining their worldview to make it easier for them to leave their community and culture and to assimilate into the dominant White society.

Her narrative weaves back and forth between the outer reality of finding and building a place to spend the rest of her life, on the one hand, and reflecting on the inner reality of self-discovery in the face of the pueblo culture. Many of these reflections are abstract meanderings, including her thoughts while under the influence of a hot mixture of peyote administered by one of Tony’s friends. She learns from this psychedelic episode but makes Tony vow that they will not use such an external means to explore their inner life together.

Edge of the Taos Desert is the fourth volume of Mabel Luhan’s four-volume autobiography and includes references to events one can guess must have been detailed in the other three books. Between 1932 and 1937, she published these as Intimate Memories, Lorenzo in Taos (about D.H. Lawrence), Winter in Taos, and Movers and Shakers. In 1947 she published Taos and its Artists. Some readers of this book (or this review) may wish to explore her other writings for she was a woman ahead of her day. In addition, include the biography by Lois Palken Rudnick, Mable Dodge Luhan: New Woman, New Worlds (University of New Mexico Press, 1987).

[Sara]

Three and a half stars. While slow at times, this engaging memoir about a New York boho socialite moving to Taos in 1917 made me desperately homesick for the desert west. Luhan had many lovely descriptions of the landscape and the daily life of the Indians and other denizens of Taos I found interesting, and I had to laugh at her silly socialite ways as she adapted to the different pace of life in Taos. And, as forward-thinking as she was then about preserving the Indians' culture and beliefs, she errs on the side of over-idolizing the Indians until they resemble (in her text) the New Age totems that well-meaning, yet clueless white people try to emulate even now. Still, at least her heart was in the right place, and she tells of it in interesting, funny, sometimes catty, sometimes lovely prose.

[Anne C.]

Mabel Dodge Luhan's life was probably much more interesting than her last installment of her memoir. I appreciate her spiritual journey and her need to escape a life that felt artificial. I also love the subtitle: an escape to reality. There are some beautiful descriptions of Northern New Mexico, but these are repeated over and over to the point of being tedious. All in all, I couldn't relate to her. She seemed self-absorbed, capricious, and careless, but as she explained, this is the world she was escaping from. Perhaps she changed; toward the end of her memoir, she admits that "the narrative about Tony and me...[is] difficult to tell," and that maybe why I found her escape to reality so unsatisfactory.

[Gayna]

I liked this book for the era it was written in. It's a close-up, personal view, of a 'white person's' observations of Indian life. Mabel has issues, to be sure, but she is learning a lot about herself and who she wants to be with the help of a new landscape, a new way of life, and a Pueblo Indian man.

[Linda Smelser]

I loved this book about Mabel Dodge Luhan, a wonderfully interesting woman from high society, who ends up living and loving a life in the Southwest. I could relate to her search for herself and enjoyed going with her through her journey. Mabel's writing, so honest and gutsy, is a joy to read.

[Mary D]

I’ve long wondered about MDL and this a lovely way to learn something about her in her own words. I immediately knew I liked her when she wrote that NM immediately felt like home to her. She was a woman who wasn’t afraid to take risks and seek adventure.

[Stormy]

What an amazing, well-written memoir. I picked up this book to find out about Tony and Mabel and found out she is a marvelous storyteller. Sense of place, sense of humor, timeless. I wish I had been able to meet these two people when they lived.

[Carrie]

I bought this book at a tiny bookstores in Santa Fe while Rob and I were there celebrating my 50th. I always enjoy reading MDL books as they take me back to a fascinating era in beautiful New Mexico.

[Jennifer Louden]

Dated, racist, naive and yet what fun to go back in time with Mabel to Taos and meeting Tony. I have taught writing retreats at her house for 18 years and it was time to read this!

[Dewayne Stark]

There seems to be a lot of confusion about who has the highest elevation. Santa Fe is higher than Taos'

[Rosemary Jones]

Interesting, strange life, I couldn't identify with her, but enjoyed most of it.

[Katie]

Good description of the Southwest before many of the cities were really developed. A bit confusing as to who was who and what their relationships were to each other but generally a good read.

[Ian Billick]

Read it at the right time and place. We had just stayed at her home, visited Taos Pueblo, and then driven to sante fe. So easy to visualize. A bit too inward looking at times but captured the place.

[Jennifer Adams]

If you love Taos and are interested in the recent Anglo history, this is a great first person account from Mabel Dodge Luhan. Today, her house and the houses of her friends are all tourist attractions, but in the book, these characters are all alive and shaping the plaza area into what it is today. As someone who relates to her experiences experiencing the natural beatify of the region, I enjoyed the book quite a bit. Of course, the author is a wealthy and her perspectives are sometimes a little bougie, but it is an honest first hand account of her experiences in Taos and falling in love with Antonio Luhan of Taos Pueblo.

[Tara]

Reading about Mabel Dodge Luhan’s renunciation of a New York life of artists and talk and pretensions in favor of the “real” life of Taos Pueblo is riveting reading while in Taos itself (not so much otherwise). The text is a bit repetitive and overly rapturous at times but generally strong and spare in its account of how one woman changed her life and her landscape.

[Bob Finch]

A well-written memoir of an idle-rich spoiled heiress seeking meaning in her life. Seems she found it in Taos, New Mexico, after marrying a native of the pueblo there, primarily by playing host to artist such as Blumenschein who were making a name for the Taos art community.

[Joanne]

Mabel, no matter what fancy terms you used for your affair with Tony, cheating is cheating. I did enjoy the descriptions of Taos, the meals, and the locals. I didn't enjoy reading that Mabel taught Tony's wife to knit, all the while coveting her husband.

[Franciszka]

an amazing way to get a sense/feel for a taos / northern new mexico as it was blooming in the early 1900s (through the eyes of a white artist/socialite landing there who can get real tokenizing about the native population).

[Virginia]

I found the first 150 pages or so fascinating, with sumptuous descriptions of early (from the European point of view) Taos. Unfortunately, Mabel then lapses into mysterious, noble Tony/Native American musings., It was rough going.

[Karen]

An amazing personal story of life in the Southwest in the 1920's. I travel to this area each year and continue to search for books written in and about Taos and New Mexico in general.

[Nicolena Johnson]

good capture of the taos area

[Mary]

Good portrait of Taos. A bit too taken with her "new" life. Winter in Taos is a far better book.

[Jules Nyquist]

This is Mabel's point of view - sweet and touching at times, yet she highlights the best part of her life without the tragedy. Inspiring to see what life was like in Taos when she arrived.

[Debra Lambert]

love the lodge...love the story............can't wait to read the other books mabel has written......

[Mary Ellen]

Interesting life