Desert Oracle: Volume 1: Strange True Tales from the American Southwest by Ken LayneMy rating: 3.5 of 5 stars
The book starts out very wisely in letting you know how to survive the desert – bring lots of water, more than you think you need. If you get lost, or your car breaks down, stay by your car! There are brief mentions of those who didn’t make it out…
The next section is about the Yucca Man, and other very short tales of a creature seen in the desert called by many names, such as Bigfoot.
A little boy is lost. A scout leader failed in his job.
It goes from there….
These are little vignettes…tales of quirky people and tales of mysterious things that may be true, or not (ghost bighorn sheep).
Most of the entries read like snippets, not complete stories, and the writing tends to jump from one thought to another, then end abruptly. But don’t let that dissuade you from reading this. It adds to the sense, a layer to the oddness that are desert dwellers.
As a compilation, there tends to be a few places where something is repeated. For myself, too much on UFO’s and aliens when considering the whole work, would have liked more on history of place, or characters, those were the better entries. The snippets are of varying length with one section about cowboy music being very long. The writing isn’t polished either, you take what you can get when you’re out on the desert.
The book also contains photos and line drawings, which adds to the character of the book.
You don’t have to love the desert, but if you do this book will thrill you!
I'll read a volume 2, if/when that comes out.
Thanks to Farrar, Straus and Giroux and NetGalley for an uncorrected electronic advance review copy of this book.
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