Desert Eccentric
by C. V. Wooster
Reader answers for Desert Eccentric
What it's about
The desert has always drawn the people who don't fit anywhere else. Desert Eccentric gathers twenty-three of their stories, from the Mojave and Death Valley to the Salton Sea and the canyon country of Utah. Frank Critzer made his home in a dugout beneath Giant Rock. George Van Tassel said he was visited by a being from Venus, then spent more than twenty years building the Integratron. Burro Schmidt cut a half-mile tunnel through a mountain over nearly four decades and never hauled an ounce of ore through it. Pancho Barnes raced airplanes and ran a notorious ranch in the Mojave. Leonard Knight painted salvation across a hillside. Bill Keys built a homestead empire and killed a man for it. Everett Ruess walked into the canyons and was never seen again. Prospectors and painters, hermits and prophets, a millionaire and the con man who charmed him: real people, drawn from their own letters and memoirs, old newspapers and court records, in a country that asked everything of them and gave back only what they could carry.
Who it's for
The catalog lists Desert Eccentric as Historical Narrative by C. V. Wooster.
Subjects listed on the book page: Mojave Desert, Death Valley, American Southwest, Giant Rock, eccentrics, true stories, narrative nonfiction, history, biography, outcasts, visionaries.
Coming soon in ebook, paperback and hardcover.
Similar books
Other Historical Narrative titles on this site:
Reading order and age notes
Desert Eccentric is not listed as part of a numbered series on this site.
The catalog does not list a separate age rating for this title.
Read it? Leave a review wherever you bought it
If one of these outcasts, visionaries or madmen stayed with you, a sentence or two on the store where you bought the book, or wherever you keep track of your reading, helps other readers find it. Thank you for reading.
Frequently asked questions
What is Desert Eccentric about?
It is a collection of twenty-three true stories about the outcasts, visionaries and self-made legends of the Southwest deserts: hermits, prospectors, painters, pilots and prophets who went into the desert, or came out of it, and refused to live ordinary lives.
Is Desert Eccentric a Route 66 book?
Not really. Route 66 appears in the prologue as the road that carried people toward the Mojave, but the book is a gathering of lives, not a road trip. Its chapters move across the Mojave, Death Valley, the Colorado Desert, the Salton Sea and the canyon country of Utah.
Who are the 'eccentrics' in the book?
Among them: Frank Critzer, who lived beneath Giant Rock; George Van Tassel and his Integratron; Burro Schmidt and his tunnel; Marshal South on Ghost Mountain; Pancho Barnes; Death Valley Scotty and Albert Johnson; Cabot Yerxa; Agnes Pelton; Shorty Harris; Leonard Knight of Salvation Mountain; Bill Keys of the Desert Queen Ranch; Everett Ruess; Mary Austin; Pegleg Smith; Borax Smith; Howard Hughes; John Wesley Powell; Edward Abbey; and Charlie Steen, the uranium king.
Is this fiction or non-fiction?
Narrative nonfiction. The people, places and principal events are real, and the dates, names and figures were checked against the sources listed at the back. A few scenes that nobody recorded word for word are reconstructed from the historical record, and A Note on Sources names each of them.
When does Desert Eccentric release?
It is coming soon in ebook, paperback and hardcover. There is no release date yet. Join C. V. Wooster's reader list to hear the day it is out.