num_pages: 239
description: In this abundant space and isolation, the energy lords extract their bounty of natural resources, and the curators of mass destruction once mined their egregious weapons and reckless acts. It is a land of absolutes, of passion and indifference, lush textures and inscrutable tensions. Here violence can push beauty to the edge of a razor blade. . . . Thus Ellen Meloy describes a corner of desert hard by the San Juan River in southeastern Utah, a place long forsaken as implausible and impassable, of little use or value—a place that she calls home. Despite twenty years of carefully nurtured intimacy with this red-rock landscape, Meloy finds herself, one sunbaked morning, staring down at a dead lizard floating in her coffee and feeling suddenly unmoored. What follows is a quest that is both physical and spiritual, a search for home.
language: English
title: The Last Cheater's Waltz: Beauty and Violence in the Desert Southwest
titlecomplete: The Last Cheater's Waltz: Beauty and Violence in the Desert Southwest
genres: Nature, History, American History, Westerns, Science, Nonfiction, Memoir, American, Essays, Natural History
ratings_count: 198
publisher: University of Arizona Press