Review 460: Soul of Nowhere

Soul of Nowhere by Craig Childs
My rating: 3.5 of 5 stars

The book is mostly a group of essays, no plot or forward movement. Each chapter is a new location, where Childs walks and climbs around these desolate areas, primarily in the desert, where people used to live. Sometimes one other person is with him, or several, occasionally he goes alone.

They find remnants of past lives, typically broken bits of pottery, and on a rare occasion a pot that is unbroken. There are other signs. It starts with the cliff dwellers, so they explore a few of these homes high up on the cliffs. They do not take these objects, they put back exactly as found when picked up. Only sketches are taken, some are replicated in the book.

Childs writing style is dense with imagery but sparse on story. We don’t know what he does for a living other than wandering around these desert locales. He goes out for not days, but weeks at a time, and occasionally alone. Sometimes he provides the smallest bit of information about who his companions are - his wife, a friend, but not himself; he purposefully wants the focus to be on the land and the past. The land is harsh, difficult terrain and finding a way through, or a path, that appears to be their purpose. They also battle extreme weather, cold or very hot, and often with little food or water.

The last essay Childs comes to the essence of himself, or the land, and he is changed. It’s one of those times he is alone, later his wife meets him with food, which he has been low on for days, and very little water which he’s been rationing so little that he has been having slight hallucinations.

There was something here that was missing, perhaps the autobiographical material, or what exactly was he doing out there? This lack, this elusive substance, made the writing hard to get into, or find a way in. The essays seem to be repeating the same scenario, except for the last one, although that one too has similarities to the others. I had attempted to read this book before, many years ago, but didn’t get past page 27. At least this time I completed it.