No Place for a Puritan: The Literature of California's Deserts

by Ruth Nolan (Editor)

Feared and romanticized throughout the ages, the desert has a hold on our imagination that is never more evident than in the literature it has inspired. From Mary Austin's meditations in The Land of Little Rain to Joan Didion's acerbic cast of characters in Play It As It Lays, the desert's seemingly barren landscapes have provided rich ground for writers to explore. These explorations have been collected for the first time in No Place for a Puritan. In this anthology are stories that thrill, frighten, sadden and inspire: a man foolishly and arrogantly collecting live rattlesnakes; a lone woman striving to make a home in a remote desert canyon; a drug-addled journalist's drive from Los Angeles to Las Vegas; a Japanese American family coping with incarceration during World War II; and one man's developing friendship with General Patton in a military training camp. There are tales of spiritual and scientific discoveries and of the cities blossoming in the farthest corners of the California desert. Including the works of local writers—Susan Straight, Gayle Brandeis, Juan Felipe Herrera, Ruth Nolan, and others—as well as household names such as John Steinbeck, Aldous Huxley, Hunter S. Thompson, Jon Krakauer, Rebecca Solnit, and Barry Lopez, No Place for a Puritan is a collection that disturbs and enchants.

Genres: Short Stories, Westerns

368 pages, Paperback

First published November 1, 2009

Reviews

[Jeff · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book inspired me in several different ways - some by the crusty characters that fill the pages but mostly by the descriptions of the landscape. How could I love the desert more? Not sure I can but this book made me glad and proud to be the desert lover I am.

[Tay · Rating 5 out of 5]

Excellent collection of short stories, poems, and excerpt from both fiction and non-fiction all set somewhere in the Mojave. If you own a home there, ADD THIS TO YOUR PERMANENT COLLECTION - for yourself and visitors! If you are passing through, pick this up a week or so before to prep your mind for your trip, open your eyes in new ways while you are there, and feel nostalgic about afterwards. These brilliant writers of all paths, times, styles, backgrounds, and voices will give you fresh, artfully articulated perspectives you'd never be exposed to otherwise. Extremely enjoyable.

My favorite time reading it was out loud to my traveling partner while she drank wine, ate snacks, and took in the desert sunset outside Joshua Tree & Twenty Nine Palms, then we switched off back and forth until it was too dark to read. Delightful.

[Denise · Rating 4 out of 5]

There was a book shop in the town I live in when this book was published, that has since gone out of business, that hosted Ruth Nolan for a book signing and lecture on the literature of the Southern California Desert. It was a fascinated evening, the likes of which are few and far between in our little desert town. Nolan was very nice and wrote a nice inscription. This is a fascinating, eclectic collection, featuring a wide range of writers, both well and lesser known. I made note of a few I want to read more of. Included literature ranges from prose to poetry, fiction to nonfiction, essays and political writings to short stories and excerpts from novels. I don't often get to read literature that is set in or otherwise references areas that I am intimately familiar with. For instance, some fiction took place at the Salton Sea, where my son's Scout troop just recently went camping. There is a unique connection with the writer and the work when you can recognize and picture the setting, including flora and fauna as well as landmarks. I also learned quite a bit about the history and unique features and characteristics of the place that has become my home, and I am more in love than ever.
I had to subtract one star due to poor editing. There were glaring typos, and in one case an entire section of text was repeated at the end of one selection. Otherwise, this was a five star read.

[Mari · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a book to savor. Ms. Nolan presents the literature of California's deserts from the earliest days through the twentieth century. The authors range from the well-known to the obscure. Through the entire book, you feel drawn into a special place that some shun and others seek. Once you finish this book, keep it handy to read a poem or a favorite author when there isn't time to read a novel.

[Jim Misko · Rating 5 out of 5]

You cannot read this book and not be drawn to the desert in some form. Ruth Nolan has compiled some of the best desert writing available on the Colorado Desert. If you've ever been in the Coachella Valley and wandered down the roadway past the Salton Sea, you would know the grip it has on the people who see it. Imagine driving through an area that is 300 feet below sea level and seeing the desert bloom. Nolan captures this feeling with many writings of people who knew the desert and loved it. She loves it obviously, as she took the time and talent and energy to compile and edit these wonderful stories. Get it read it, and give it to desert lovers. It is a choice book for your library.

[David Allen · Rating 3 out of 5]

A well done collection of writings -- nonfiction, fiction, poetry -- about the Mojave, a companion of sorts to the Inlandia anthology of Inland Empire writing that was a bit more urban. While I read every word, the type size here is not reader-friendly. Makes me wonder if the page count was set in advance and the collection kept growing, the type shrinking to accommodate it all. Like the desert, this book is not for the faint of heart.

[Elevate Difference · Rating 4 out of 5]

Possibly some magnetic force field that beckons people to its promises of adventure, wealth, and sun blazed days, there is a pull toward California. Be it a fight for survival, a lost treasure, or ability to inspire, California and its sacred deserts are full of mysticism and brighter futures. On the other hand, California's offerings are in no way a given. The obstacles, being weather related or competitive in nature, are likely to break a person's soul. Being able to say you have survived it's land is almost like saying you have won the game; you took a chance with death and you have proven your worth. No other state has inspired so many forms of art. Iconic by design, this land is the perfect backdrop, and main character, for many written works.

The poetry, prose, and excerpts in No Place for a Puritan prove the obsession that humankind has for life on the edge in pursuit of some greater good while in the desert. The glimpses into desert life this anthology contains are of the truest embodiment of human existence; we live to struggle, and struggle to live.

Writers seem to find a freedom in the stillness that extreme quiet in the desert provides. W. Storrs Lee mentions the antagonist the desert provides in an excerpt of his 1963 novel, The Great California Deserts. How convenient and true is his statement. How ideal to set your characters in such a place where even vegetation can't pull though!

By including authors of long ago and authors of present standing, Nolan has encapsulated the trance that the desert can have on any point of time. An excerpt of Hunter S. Thompson's cult classic, Fear and Loathing in Las Vegas, brings to mind the drug addled culture that the Californian desert hides.

The beautiful stories, recollections, and poems shared here are all too beautiful to name. The romanticism amongst trailer parks and treacherous landscape only encourages the reader to see it for oneself. Ruth Nolan has done a spectacular job gathering the pieces contained in this book to point out all of the deserts' offerings and takings to those who dare to encounter it. The desert still stands a mystery; centuries after humankind started writing about its splendors.

Another decadent plus to this anthology is that I've been reading it during one of the coldest spells in recent history. There is nothing better than the warmth fueled by the reminders of the sun and the land it graces on a continual basis. I miss the desert even more now.

Review by A. Mariel Westermeyer

[Joe · Rating 4 out of 5]

Really great anthology -- highly recommended for those with an interest in the deserts of Southern California.

[L.J. · Rating 5 out of 5]

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