Revenge of the Saguaro: Offbeat Travels Through America's Southwest
By Tom Miller
 Personally Inscribed to Successful Bidder
250 pages
www.tommillerbooks.com


Since moving to the Southwest in the 1960s, Miller (On the Border, The Panama Hat Trail) has been inspired to write about the Sunbelt. This book gains momentum as it progresses through personal anecdotes, research, and newsworthy events both past and present. The balanced coverage touches on both the beauty of the desert and the plight of illegal immigrants. We learn about Eco-raiders who combat urban sprawl, Walter Swan's one-title bookstore, and the art of cockfighting. Residents, potential visitors, and armchair travelers alike will be captivated by Miller's informative and often humorous book, in which the romance and reality of the Southwest are intermingled within a fine narrative. Winner in 2001 of the Lowell Thomas Award for Best Travel Book of the Year.

Picture a map that highlights the American Southwest with some of adjoining Mexico as well. ROTS  travels this turf, looking at its reality and myths. It answers questions such as –

* What is the sound of one billboard falling?
* Where does “La Bamba” come from?
* Does Rosa’s Cantina in “El Paso” really exist?
* Whence cometh the chimichanga? The bola tie? Black velvet art?
* How did the movies “Milagro Beanfield War” and “Salt of the Earth” come about?
* Who are the Pirates of the Pinacate?

Copper miners, Hollywoodlings, and songwriters, barflies, cockfighters, and eco-saboteurs all have their say. There’s a portrait of Cochise County, Arizona, closer to Mexico than to the United States but obeying the laws of neither, and we learn about the author’s escapades as a stringer for the New York Times. ROTS lovingly portrays this conflicted region with a clear moral vision, while reveling in the joys of the land and its people.

The book, somewhat expanded and updated from its previous life as "Jack Ruby’s Kitchen Sink," draws on the frightening story of a double homicide, in which a majestic 125 year old saguaro kills its assassin.