Frank Waters

Describes the course of the Colorado River, its impact on the land through which it flows and on the people living nearby, dams and canals used to harness the river's water, and controversies surrounding its use.

Based on the real life of Edith Warner, who ran a tea room at Otowi Crossing, just below Los Alamos, the novel tells the story of a woman who is in tune with her adopted environment and her neighbors in the nearby Indian Pueblo, and who is also a close friend of the first atomic scientists. The secret evolution of atomic research is a counterpoint to the psychic development of the main character, Helen Chalmers. The story is quintessential Waters: a parable for the potentially destructive materialism of the mid-twentieth century. The antidote is Helen Chalmers's ability to understand a deeper truth of her being; beyond the Western notion of selfhood, beyond the sense of a personality distinct from the rest, she experiences a new and wider awareness.

Maps on lining-papers. "Source material": p. 342-344.

"In The Dust within the Rock, the third book in the Pikes Peak saga, an aging Joseph Rogier clings to his vision of finding gold in the great mountain and his grandson Marsh comes of age in the Rogier household. It is the early part of the twentieth century, in Colorado Springs, and the schoolhouse, the newsstand, the railroad, the mines--all become part of the younger man's emergence into adulthood and self-discovery"--Amazon.com.

A collection of stories and essays about the Southwest.