To better appreciate the quirky past and perplexing present of this place we know as Arizona, Richard Grant suggests we consider the State Seal that is so proudly displayed at our capitol in Phoenix.
In the foreground of that scene is a miner, representing the importance copper played in the state’s history, which seems fitting enough.
But the likeness, Grant reports, is of George Warren.
“He owned one of the richest copper mines in the world, down in Bisbee, and got into an argument one night in town,” Grant said. “He bet his share in the mine that he could outrun a horse. He lost the bet, lost his mine, became an alcoholic, and wound up on the State Seal.”
Welcome to Arizona!
This is just one of the fun facts and little-known stories to be found in Grant’s sixth book, “A Race to the Bottom of Crazy,” which was released Sept. 17 by Simon & Schuster.
As the title suggests, Grant takes time to explore the strange world of Arizona politics, but he also takes us camping with his wife and daughter.
We visit the Big Sandy Shoot — “The Largest Machine Gun Shoot in the World” — near Wikieup. We learn of a 75-year Chiricahua chief called Nana, who led one of the most audacious military campaigns in U.S. history. We discover that Phoenix was known as Pumpkinville for a time.
“A Race to the Bottom of Crazy” will probably be shelved in the memoir section of your neighborhood library, but it’s not your usual memoir.
Richard Grant with his collection of books by the late Charles Bowden, his friend and mentor.
“The publisher actually asked me for a political story,” Grant said. “It was 2020, and Arizona had become a crucial swing state. We had the cyber ninjas, the recount going on in Phoenix … There was a lot of craziness going on. So that’s where I started, but I wound up with some commentary, some history, some research … I call it an Arizona-centric memoir, but it’s really a bunch of different things I thought were interesting.”
“Interesting” is a word that comes up a lot around Grant, who was born in Malaysia, raised in Kuwait and educated in London.
Wikipedia calls him a British travel writer, and while there is truth to that — he still has his British accent and occasionally writes for British magazines — he has lived in Tucson for most of the last 35 years.
“The first time I drove into Tucson, in 1991, it reminded me of a Tom Waits song,” Grant recalls in his book. “There was an old-time barbershop offering straight-razor shaves, a ramshackle two-story musical instrument store, some dive bars and seedy cafes. I still remember a wig shop named Wig-O-Rama, where the display-window mannequins had been cracked by the sun.”
As a travel writer, he found the scene irresistible, but Grant soon realized Tucson was feeling like home.
“I rented a little house near Fourth Avenue, and for years that was my home base,” Grant said. “I never spent more than three weeks at a time there — I was usually traveling, either for work or for pleasure — but that’s where I picked up my mail.”
Soon after his arrival, Grant met Charles Bowden, then Tucson’s most important author. They lived less than 5 miles apart, but – predictably – they did not meet in Tucson.
“A British newspaper sent me to Missoula, Montana, to write about smokejumpers, the firefighters who battled wildfires,” Grant said. “One night at dinner, I heard a guy talking, and he said something that led me to say ‘Excuse me, I’m living in Tucson and I just read a book by Charles Bowden. Is that you?’”
The two would become close friends, with Bowden an occasional mentor.
“He is the one who convinced me to take my writing seriously,” Grant said. “I had started writing as a way to avoid a real job; as a way to pay for my travel. Chuck took everything seriously, especially his work. He convinced me my work was important, too.”
In 2003, Grant published “American Nomads,” a book that grew from a magazine story he had written about rodeo cowboys.
Five years later, Grant chronicled another adventure — this time into the Sierra Madre Mountains — in “God’s Middle Finger,“ which was honored as a Southwest Book of the Year by the Pima County Public Library.
Two books about life in the South established Grant as a star. “Dispatches from Pluto“ and “The Deepest South of All“ became New York Times bestsellers. Both benefited from huge book sales in the South, and readers there have not forgotten.
Grant launched “Crazy” by being a headliner at the Mississippi Book Festival two weeks ago in Jackson. “The good news is that they ordered 1,500 hardbacks. The bad news is I had to sign them.”
Interestingly, the book is dedicated to Grant’s 9-year-old daughter, Isobel.
“I thought she’d get a kick of it, and she did,” but Isobel is also a throughline that connects many of Grant’s stories.
“When you’re a husband and a father, you start thinking about things differently than you did before,” he said. “You worry about rising temperatures and diminishing water supplies. The fact that Mississippi’s public schools perform better than Arizona’s should be a source of shame.”
Among the questions Grant ponders in his book is, “What will life be like in Arizona when Isobel turns 18?”
Maybe we should all start thinking about that.
FOOTNOTES
The title of Grant’s book comes in part from a former Phoenix columnist. Writing for the Arizona Republic, Joe Talton once said “You can’t spell ‘crazy’ without AZ in the middle of it.”
The image of George Warren, the miner on the Arizona State Seal, was lifted from a photo that hung in a Bisbee bank in 1910.
Poet Mary Ruefle, whose collection “Dunce” was a finalist for the 2020 Pulitzer Prize, will be the featured guest Thursday, Sept. 26, at 7 p.m. at the University of Arizona Poetry Center, 1508 E. Helen Street. She will read from her latest book, “The Book.” For more, visit poetry.arizona.edu.
Los Descendientes de Tucson and University of Arizona Press will host a book-launch party for Melani Martinez and “The Molino” next Sunday, Sept. 29, at the Tucson Museum of Art, 166 W. Alameda St. The celebration will begin at 3 p.m. and is open to all. To learn more and register, visit uapress.arizona.edu/events.
