The liquid lifeline of an arid land, the Rio Grande has always been a vital presence in the American Southwest and Northern Mexico. A source of human sustenance for at least 15,000 years, the river has also been a site of conflict ever since exploring Spaniards first crossed its channel to colonize the Native Americans. Today, it is one of the frontiers in the war against terrorism in the Middle East. Yet the Rio Grande has a life independent of the people who use it as a border, or a hiding place, or an ever-diminishing source of irrigation water. This autonomous life of the river is what the writers and photographers included in this book seek to capture.
Rio Grande explores the ecology, history, culture, and politicization of the river. Jan Reid has assembled writings by an astonishing array of leading authors—Larry McMurtry, Tony Hillerman, Paul Horgan, Charles Bowden, John Graves, Woody Guthrie, John Reed, John Nichols, Robert Boswell, James Carlos Blake, Elena Poniatowska, William Langewiesche, Molly Ivins, Dagoberto Gilb, and Gloria Anzaldúa, to name but a few—who ponder the river's historical and contemporary meanings through short stories, essays, newspaper and magazine articles, and excerpts from novels, histories, memoirs, and nonfiction reporting. Reid also adds his own reflections on the river, drawn from years of traveling the Rio Grande, talking to its people, and conducting archival research.
In addition to the fine writing, historical and contemporary photographs by such well-known photographers as Laura Gilpin, Russell Lee, Robert Runyon, Bill Wittliff, W. D. Smithers, James Evans, Frank Armstrong, Ave Bonar, Earl Nottingham, and Alan Pogue create a stunning visual record of the stark beauty and elemental lifeways of the Rio Grande. As a whole, these voices and visions confirm the river's significance, not only as a real place, but even more as an object of the mythic imagination.
Rio Grande is a fine representation of the human histories and lives that are entwined with this great river.
In Rio Grande, Reid has assembled an intoxicating mix of prose, conveying the enchantment, struggle, and mystery of the river.
Jan Reid (1945–2020) has written for Texas Monthly, Esquire, GQ, Slate, Men’s Journal, Garden & Gun, the New York Times, and many other publications. His books include The Improbable Rise of Redneck Rock, The Bullet Meant for Me, Let the People In, Texas Tornado: The Times and Music of Doug Sahm, and two award-winning novels, Deerinwater and Comanche Sundown. He lived in Austin, Texas.
- Prologue
- Part 1. Río del Norte
- Paul Horgan, from Great River
- Tony Hillerman, from New Mexico, Rio Grande and Other Essays
- Bill Logan, "The Old Meat Hunter"
- John Nichols, from The Milagro Beanfield War
- Part 2. Desert Bloom
- Josiah Gregg, from Commerce of the Prairies
- Robert Boswell, from American Owned Love
- William Langewiesche, from Cutting for Sign
- Charles Bowden, from Down by the River
- Dagoberto Gilb, from The Last Known Residence of Mickey Acuña
- Cecilia Ballí, "Ciudad de la Muerte"
- Part 3. La Junta
- John Graves, "Big River"
- John Reed, from Insurgent Mexico
- Don Henry Ford, Jr., from Contrabando
- Robert Draper, "Soldiers of Misfortune"
- Aristeo Brito, from The Devil in Texas
- Part 4. Big Bend
- Robert T. Hill, from "Running the Cañons of the Rio Grande"
- Woody Guthrie, from Seeds of Man
- Molly Ivins, "Mayor of Lajitas Not the Goat He Used to Be"
- John Spong, "Sand Trap"
- Part 5. Crossings
- Stephen Harrigan, "Highway One," from Comanche Midnight
- Dick J. Reavis, "Gateway to Texas"
- Larry McMurtry, from Lonesome Dove
- Elmer Kelton, from The Time It Never Rained
- Tom Miller, "Confessions of a Parrot Trooper," from On the Border
- Jan Reid, "Busting Out of Mexico," from Close Calls
- John Davidson, from The Long Road North
- María Eugenia Guerra, "Nothing to Declare"
- Elena Poniatowska, from Guerrero Viejo
- Part 6. La Frontera
- Rolando Hinojosa, from "A Sense of Place"
- Robert Mendoza, "A Piece of Land"
- James Carlos Blake, from In the Rogue Blood
- Irene Beltrán Hernández, from Across the Great River
- Américo Paredes, from George Washington Gómez
- Gary Cartwright, "Border Towns," from Confessions of a Washed-Up Sportswriter
- Oscar Casares, "Domingo," from Brownsville
- Gloria Anzaldúa, from Borderlands
- Epilogue
- Biographical Notes
- Acknowledgments
- Illustration Credits
