Some of the book's most tender moments are the author's intensely personal exchanges with his dying mother. The entire work is haunted by the friendly ghost of environmentalist Edward Abbey, whose biography, 'Epitaph for a Desert Anarchist,' Bishop penned years ago. His characters are also places - a gambling casino, the Grand Canyon, a dying Arizona river, a supernatural café. His stories are studded with characters that are brave, principled, flamboyant. The author's writing is picturesque and emotional - leaden with an intense affection for a region he considers sacred. When Bishop writes about the Southwest it becomes a painted desert, stark and electric, an enchanted, windswept land of shadowy dawns and psychedelic dusks.

Nowhere are the mysteries richer, more voluminous or meaningful than in the Southwest, a place where, by Bishop's reckoning, 'the land and the imagination are forever merging.' Each ends with the mantra, 'Let the mystery be!' It's an ode to the richness of a life lived with more questions than answers.

renders 'The Pink Nectar Café.' Part memoir, part history lesson, part expose, it is a magical collection of stories about ancient and modern cultures.Įach story is prefaced with a quotation from the likes of Shakespeare, Sandburg, Frost, Thoreau, Bonaparte, Anais Nin. The American Southwest - a place of the vast and mysterious open spaces, high deserts and carved valleys - is the canvas upon which author James Bishop Jr.

Jim bishop pink nectar cafe