In Songs of the Fluteplayer, the charm and challenge of the spectacularly beautiful American Southwest are irresistibly captured by a woman who risked much to discover a new life and greater meaning there. Sharman Apt Russell and her husband moved to the Mimbres Valley in southwestern New Mexico in order to lead a simpler yet more substantial life. Their efforts to be self-sufficient-building an adobe house, giving birth at home, growing their own food-shattered many ideals and forced compromises but also renewed their ties to each other and kindled their respect for the land and its people. The American Southwest that Russell fell in love with comes to life vividly in her writing. From Navajo weavers to illegal Mexican workers, trading posts to prehistoric pottery, water rights disputes to the omnipresent fluteplayer Kokopelli-the energy and wonder of the Southwest is celebrated in this enchanting book.

 

Sharman Apt Russell is the author of Anatomy of a Rose, as well as Kill the Cowboy and When the Land Was Young, both available in Bison Books editions. She lives in southern New Mexico.

"Russell's well-written essays describe her life as an urban immigrant to the rural Southwest. . . . Her writing is careful and honest and her observations are wise."—Library Journal

"A fine contribution to the literature of the modern American Southwest and 'constructed' lifestyles. . . . Russell's candor about reality versus dream is refreshing as she recounts their loss of naiveté. . . . She achieves just the right mix of fact and metaphor, humor and poetics."—Booklist

"A lovely little book. To be kept and read and read again."—Tony Hillerman