“Blood and Silver” by Vali Benson
Tellwell Talent. $18.50 hardcover, $11.99 paperback, $3.99 Kindle
Tombstone, Arizona, was a lively place in 1880, bustling with miners seeking their fortunes and entrepreneurs intent on separating them from their silver. Miss Lucille, newly arrived from San Francisco, sees immediately that women in her line of work can turn a handsome profit here; her handpicked “soiled doves” are far prettier than the local talent, so she gets right to work establishing the boom town’s newest brothel. Tombstone seems less promising to Carissa, the 12-year-old daughter of one of Miss Lucille’s working girls. After a series of personal tragedies, Carissa and her laudanum-addicted mother appear to be out of options, but Carissa is spunky and determined to escape Miss Lucille’s clutches. And, in this unlikely place, she finds allies who can help her. Evoking, with crisp detail, a memorable era in Arizona’s rowdy past, author Vali Benson populates her novel with both fictional and historical characters, including China Mary — the doyenne of Hoptown, Tombstone’s Chinese quarter — who enjoyed the reputation of being the town’s most influential citizen. Benson lives in Tucson; she has been published in a variety of publications, including History Magazine.
— Helene Woodhams
“Phantasmagoria — A Presidential Odyssey: A Satire About Trump’s America” by Lisa Anne Turner
Published by the author. Kindle $1.99
U.S. President Nero Neomort, former reality TV star and shady businessman, is inept, egotistical and malignantly unreasonable. Like his ancient Roman namesake, he fiddles (or, rather, plays golf) while the country struggles. Yet despite his myriad flaws, Neomort is not without staunch supporters, personified by the unstable Vernon Teacup, who considers himself a true patriot and has a stockpile of weaponry in his Texas barn — including a surplus tank and several caged tigers — to prove it. Clearly, rationality is a rare commodity in Neomort’s America. This is apparent during a disastrous White House State dinner honoring the Russian president (and Neomort’s hero) who governs a populace crushed by decades of brutal authoritarianism. Neomort’s ill-conceived challenge to a shooting contest results in the vengeful Russian president blowing off part of his own hand, setting in motion a cascade of increasingly bizarre events.
The title of Lisa Anne Turner’s political satire refers to its blending of fact and fiction; the narrative arc begins with a realistic, perhaps all-too familiar landscape and builds to a crescendo of chaos that keeps you turning pages. As political satire it holds up a mirror to our own “new normal,” a reflection that should not be ignored. Hair-raising stories and alternative facts daily emerging from Washington have desensitized us to increasingly shocking, divisive behavior and, as the author suggests, outrage fatigue can have dangerous consequences for democracy. Turner, who works for the city of Tucson, is a military veteran and former news and feature writer for a municipal daily newspaper.
— Helene Woodhams
“Tucson Water Turnaround: Crisis to Success” by Michael J. McGuire and Marie S. Pearthree
American Water Works Assoc. $31.76; $33 Kindle
“Whiskey’s for drinking, and water’s for fighting over.” So the saying goes, and it neatly sums up the situation in Tucson in the early 1990s when the attempt was made to switch from groundwater to CAP (Central Arizona Project) water. As longtime Tucsonans will recall, the CAP rollout was an epic failure. The water smelled bad and ran from faucets in a rainbow of unsightly colors from yellow to dark brown. It ruined clothes, damaged appliances and ate through pipes that flooded homes. The populace was in an uproar, the politicians were in a frenzy, and the water company was, well, ineffectual. Finally, the city opted to take CAP back offline, but that didn’t solve the Old Pueblo’s crisis of dwindling groundwater resources; plus, Tucson’s non-participation threatened to bankrupt the CAP.
Into this existential crisis came authors Mike McGuire and Marie Pearthree, civil and environmental engineers and water utility professionals who were part of the coalition that reversed the transition’s death spiral and turned it into a success. But this is not a belated victory lap. Rather, the authors’ intent is to understand and document, nearly 30 years later, exactly what transpired from start to finish. With this scrupulously researched, well-organized, and highly readable book, they do just that. Beginning with a historical overview of water delivery in the Tucson basin, the authors explore the perfect storm of aging infrastructure, technical failures, and toxic management culture that resulted in a public relations nightmare, and the subsequent remediation that produced a functioning water system. Perhaps most importantly, they provide a fascinating examination of how public trust is destroyed and rebuilt. Municipalities confronting water delivery issues will benefit from this object lesson and Tucsonans, particularly old-timers who experienced the CAP debacle firsthand as Pearthree did, will be fascinated by what actually went down.
— Helene Woodhams
“Interrupted Weekend: A Subic Story” by R. L. Scifres
Published by the author. $9.99 paperback; $5.99 e-book
Setting informs and supports this debut novel by Green Valley resident R.L. Scifres: the stink of the Manila dump and filth in dump-pickers’ dwellings; the Spartan living and working spaces of the Americans stationed in the Philippines in the 1970s; the noisy, chaotic street scenes of the small Philippine city (Olongapo) near the US Naval Station at Subic Bay, with its ubiquitous bars and sailor-gratifying establishments; pervasive, oppressive, steamy heat building to a storm. From that setting — and in one short weekend — Scifres pulls out a gripping story of murder, betrayal, political subterfuge and tentative romance.
Roy Thompson has been grieving over the death of a lover, and is unsure about his future, when he arrives at Subic to assume his new assignment as senior chief of the Naval Magazine. To orient himself, he makes his way to Ace’s Place, a small, low-key Olongapo bar recommended by a friend, where he meets Luz, a beautiful young Philippina working to overcome a deprived childhood. As they chat, and as the bar begins to fill up, a stealthy, ritualistic murder is taking place not far away. Two other patrons of Ace’s that night — a clever street vendor, Ben, and exuberant, Black American Master Chief Denny Boggs — complete the set-up for action that threatens them all.
Scifres, who himself served in the Naval Security Group, and had been stationed in the Philippines in the 70s, presents a convincing, authentic story in “Interrupted Weekend.” That he allows some sympathy for Philippinos chafing under American occupation lends nuance to the tale.
— Christine Wald-Hopkins
“In the Clear Light of Day (Volume II: India and Beyond)” by Jon Dorschner
Published by the author. Paperback, $10; Kindle, $3. Large Print with color photos: Paperback, $66; Kindle, $5
The pesky “after you die” question plagued curious Jon Dorschner as a kid: Is this short life all there is? If God judges us when we die, as he was taught by his Christian tradition, and the good go to heaven, and the bad go to hell, what then? Do the bad suffer the torments of hell through all eternity? Even Hitler and Stalin might not deserve that. Young Dorschner was ready for another spiritual construct, and he found it in Eastern religions — first, Zen Buddhism; finally, Hinduism. The first volume of Dorschner’s memoir chronicled his spiritual path through university. Volume II opens with him leaving Tucson for India in 1978, where he will live in a village for a year and do field work for his Ph.D. in south Asian studies. He will return frequently.
This is a remarkable, expansive work — part personal spiritual journey, part study in comparative religions, part riot of rich India travelogue. Tucson resident and University of Arizona instructor Dorschner had a full career as a foreign service officer, but he clearly also wholeheartedly embraced cultural and religious experience: learning Hindi, traveling to pilgrimage destinations, participating in ashram and temple practices — often as the only white man; crawling onto the luggage rack on packed trains; adopted into a Rajput family, bunking down next to the water buffalo; but also arranging a religious colloquy for President Bush when he visited India. It’s colorful, informative, meditative, and — like India itself — so full and vibrant it’s almost hard to grasp. Dorschner writes that Hinduism made two great contributions to metaphysics: karma and reincarnation. If reincarnation only worked this way, this reviewer would love to come back in Dorschner’s life.
— Christine Wald-Hopkins
“Southwest Trails and Tales” by John Stuart Watkins
Published by the author. $38.45 with color photos. 2nd edition, in black and white, $12
SaddleBrooke realtor and retired teacher John Stuart Watkins writes early and often in multiple genres. “Southwest Trails and Tales” — his latest in about a dozen publications — is comprised of more than 80 “writes” or “scenes” — poems, personal experiences, cowboy stories, veterans’ tales and a predatory teenager story. It even includes a tale about God, Jesus and the Holy Spirit in Tucson. They wander into a McDonald’s on Speedway, but soon decamp to Miracle Mile, which they expect to be more to their taste.
“Oracle, Arizona and Beyond” (self-published), another recent publication by John Stuart Watkins has qualities of a personal photograph album or memory book. About three-quarters of the book consists of photos snapped in small Arizona towns — Oracle, San Manuel, Mammoth, Florence, Bisbee; the remainder focuses on Watkins’s experience as a competitive marksman. The towns pictures — of shops, churches, landscape, art, ranches and some townspeople — are accompanied by brief text (which could have used closer proofing). The marksmanship section includes warm tributes to fellow rifle teammates.
— Christine Wald-Hopkins
