If Mountains Die

John Nichols's short, prescient essays and Bill Davis's photographs constitute a classic memoir of a place. The book describes a small Hispanic and Native American agricultural community forced to modernize by big business and a group of hippies. Nichols moved to Taos in 1969, after an "eye-opening and life-changing trip" to Guatemala, which gave him a perspective on the disparity of wealth and poverty. He found a similar battle in Taos with Taos farmers fighting against the construction of a dam. Davis came from Georgia almost 40 years ago; he arrived in Taos on Christmas Eve: "The mystery so captivated my heart and soul that in the years since I have had little cause to leave the village of Taos and its surrounding countryside." Nichols lived (and still lives) in a three-room adobe, drove an ancient Dodge pickup, and worked "the graveyard shift", writing every night from about 10 pm until dawn. "And I love this wounded valley for precisely the same reasons that I often hate it: It is one of the few places that I have ever been that I have truly taken personally." Nichols went on to write a trilogy of novels, essential to understand the conflicts between this indigenous society and "progress": The Milagro Beanfield War: A Novel, The Magic Journey: A Novel and The Nirvana Blues: A Novel. Nichols's essays in If Mountains Die deal with the difficulties and joys of living in an adobe building, the joy of trout fishing, and the challenges of maintaining the irrigation system. His most moving passages deal with his neighbors and their efforts to maintain their way of life. Davis contributed sixty-five color photographs that capture the mountains, mesas, forests, deserts, rivers and farmland in several seasons. People rarely appear in the photographs; the scenery predominates; but the impact of humanity is always in evidence. Together, Nichols and Davis have created a extraordinary memoir of a wonderful place. Robert C. Ross 2008

New Mexico, and the Taos area in particular, has to be one of the most beautiful places on earth. John Nichols captures this beauty perfectly in his first of the Taos series, "If Mountains Should Die." Accompanied by heart-grabbing photographs, this book describes his first few years in Taos as a transplanted East-Coaster. Nichols not only captures the raw beauty of the land, but also the people that occupy it. Along with this, he describes the disturbing and continous struggle to keep it alive and free from suburbanization. His personal and touching accounts of his own struggle with the place and the people bring it alive in unexpected ways. There is also plenty of respect here, along with a deep anger for what is being done to the land, the people, and the unique way of life found in Taos Valley. As this is a very special place in my heart, I found it easy to cry and laugh along with him.