Beyond Desert Walls: Essays from Prison
Lamberton, a former schoolteacher and current freelance writer, presents a sequel to his first collection of essays,Wilderness and Razor Wire(2000). While these 15 essays offer glimpses into Lamberton's 12-year prison stint for a relationship with a teenage student, the majority focus on his experiences as a naturalist. Enamored of the Sonoran Desert as a child, Lamberton went on to study biology in college, eventually taking a teaching position at a high school in Arizona. But it wasn't until his incarceration that he became a conservationist. Each short essay describes a transforming experience: a man in the habit of acquiring "samples" from the desert realizes that avoidance may be the only way to save nesting gray hawks. The immature 28-year-old more interested in being a friend than a teacher to his young students discovers his talent as "a teacher's aide to the desert." Written over more than a decade, there is some repetition within the essays, but Lamberton is a skilled writer with a restless and discerning eye.Rebecca MakselCopyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.