Antigone Books

Event Date: Friday, September 28 at 7:00 p.m.

North of the glitz of Los Angeles lies a sparsely populated region in the high Mojave Desert where ranchers, dreamers, dropouts and felons have settled — those who have chosen solitude over the trappings of contemporary life.  In  recent years, their lives have been encroached upon by the creeping spread of development.  Against the backdrop of these two competing visions of land and space, a drama unfolded when Donald Kueck, a desert hermit who loved animals and hated civilization, gunned down a beloved deputy sheriff who was approaching his home.  Deanne Stillman uses Kueck's story as a point of departure to explore our relationship to place and the conflicts that are playing out in our homeland.  In addition, Stillman delves into the hidden history of the area as she traces the paths of two men on a collision course.

"Stillman skillfully excavates the vividly drawn landscape to reveal the desert's mystical spirit and history of human striving...Through the lens of a gripping true crime story, this beautifully written, humane book preserves the history of a remarkable and very American place and its people." --Publisher's Weekly

"Lyrical and intense...  A dynamic synthesis of Western saga, true-crime thriller and California-based transformation narrative." --Kirkus Reviews

Desert Reckoning: A Town Sheriff, a Mojave Hermit, and the Biggest Manhunt in Modern California History (Hardcover)

By Deanne Stillman

$26.00

ISBN-13: 9781568586083
Availability: Usually Ships in 1-5 days
Published: Nation Books, 7/2012

Other Editions of this Title

In a work that is part Jon Krakauer and part Cormac McCarthy, critically acclaimed writer, Deanne Stillman, uses the story of the biggest manhunt in California history to tell a universal tale of Donald Kueck, an outlaw at war with contemporary America.

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