MIRACLE COUNTRY :: Kendra Atleework

California has a vast literary legacy, with works by those such as Mary Austin, John Steinbeck, Kevin Starr, and Joan Didion to name just a few. A new name needs to be added to the list--Kendra Atleework ("The Atleework children are alone in the world with this name because our parents made it up. Who needs a hyphen? Robert Atlee met Jan Work and there you have it."--how cool is this?) Born and raised in the Eastern Sierras, Atleework's Miracle Country is not only a stunning look at the magic and draw of her birthplace, but a beautiful familial memoir. I loved both parts, and if I try to pick a favorite it is even more evident how intertwined they are. Add that kickass cover and you have a brilliant trifecta.

Atleework's writing about the denizens of her area is beautiful in its honesty and grit.

To understand the place we call the Eastern Sierra, you must be able to see what is no longer here. See what hides, change your definition of big and empty and small, of good and bad. Bend and search the desert floor for the near-invisible petals of a crowned muilla and then look up to mountains that seem to rise forever. This dusty margin of California draws and then replicates the kind of people who have never completely adjusted to a human scale. They don’t quite fit other places, be it the orbit of their ideas, good and bad, or the size of the sky they require in order to carry out their lives.

Her landscape writing, however, is dazzling. Great landscape writing, in my opinion, is a very difficult thing to achieve. It takes a special voice, intimacy, caring (love or hate or a complex mixture of both). Atleework hits that recipe out of the park. She grew up in Swall Meadows, in the Owens Valley of the Eastern Sierra Nevada. Annual rainfall averages five inches. In drought years that can be closer to zero.

The wind is a major force in the Eastern Sierra, earning the moniker of "Sierra Wave," and Atleework's writing about it is sublime:

On the beaches of the Pacific, gusts arrive laden with salt spray, whooshing with enough force to make your eyes water, a persistence perfect for launching kites. By the time that breeze reaches Owens Valley, it has raced over the coastal range, up the western, windward flank of the Sierra Nevada, and it has turned powerful. Dust devils tear up the dry surface of what was once Owens Lake, tossing toxic particles miles into the sky, into the lungs of the people who live near the old shoreline. The wind blows from the west over the mountains, and the willows along the river lean east. It scatters pollen in a golden film over backyard ponds. It stretches curtains across bedrooms.

I have hiked on a day when the Sierra Wave pummeled the sky, have leaned into a gale so strong it negates the work of gravity and I can almost lie down on air, can fall forward without really falling.

I have found myself caught in a canyon when the Jeffrey pines above me thrashed their branches like furious giants and the Wave hurled stones and pine cones and I ran for my car.

The Atleeworks were raised to thrive in their harsh environment, filled with scorpions, black widow spiders, rattlesnakes, cat-stealing coyotes, and mountain lions. They were "forever at the mercy of wildfires, blizzards, and gale-force winds. Above all, they were raised on unconditional love and delight in the natural world." The care and love of Atleework's unique and charismatic parents shines through in her work.

Her mother was diagnosed with an autoimmune disease when Atleework was six and died when she was 16. This loss wreaked havoc on Robert ("a man of wild plans and long shots") and his children, particularly adopted son Anthony ("pure cooked-down rage"). The family was damaged, Kendra taking off for school in Minnesota and Anthony tearing off with ill-conceived plans. Miracle Country recounts her pull home by her family as well as the landscape ("In Minnesota, the world is blanketed in snow silence. It’s safe to say: I miss familiar disaster. I miss water’s absence.")

In addition to landscape and family love and turmoil, Atleework swirls in some fascinating history of California, particularly with respect to water and the influence of William Mulholland, who became responsible for the infrastructure that pulled water away from the Sierras and allowed Los Angeles to become the city it is. The changes were not without war-waging. "'Whiskey’s for drinking. Water’s for fighting over.' This is a western adage I have heard many times. The contest over water passes between generations like a sodden torch. Bishop folks dam the shallow tributaries that pass through town, flooding their own yards and cutting off those below."

A memoir of love, loss, landscape and (to continue the alliteration) leaving, Miracle Country is a fascinating, heartfelt read that is astonishing in breadth without feeling bogged down. The advance praise will give you an even better push to pick up this gem:

“[A] shimmering memoir… More than a work of environmental change or history of place, this is a love letter of sorts to Atleework’s mother. Her presence is felt in every page, and it is in the pursuit of peace amid her loss that ultimately brings ­Atleework home. A bittersweet tribute to home and family in breathtaking prose that will appeal to lovers of memoirs and history, as well as anyone who enjoys beautifully crafted writing.”

—Library Journal

“A sensitive, thoughtful portrait of a part of California that few people see—or want to… A welcome update of classic works on California’s arid backcountry by Mary Austin, Marc Reisner, and Reyner Banham.”

—Kirkus Reviews

“Kendra Atleework has written the most beautiful book about California I ever have read. The author locates the mystery and beauty of her life in the small town of Bishop, on the eastern slope of the Sierra, decades after Los Angeles has stolen the water. Her poet's prose, on every page, honors the dry land and breathes Nature to life.”

—Richard Rodriguez, author of Darling: A Spiritual Autobiography

“Miracle Country is a soaring homage to California and to the sparsely populated and drought-prone eastern sierra, where the author grew up. Blending family memoir and environmental history, Kendra Atleework conveys a fundamental truth: the places in which we live, live on – sometimes painfully – in us. This is a powerful, beautiful, and urgently important book.”

—Julie Schumacher, author of The Shakespeare Requirement

“This eloquent narrative is both a natural history of the author's home place, a seemingly arid region, and a loving portrait of an extraordinary family. Kendra Atleework has an uncanny wisdom and a deep sense of people and their origins, and she writes like an angel.”

—Charles Baxter, author of There’s Something I Want You to Do

“Can a book be both radiant with light and shadowy as midnight? Miracle Country can. I felt the thrill I once knew reading Annie Dillard for the first time. Kendra Atleework can really write. She flies with burning wings."

—Luis Alberto Urrea, author of The House of Broken Angels

“Miracle Country is truly some kind of miracle, combining a moving family story with deft, deeply researched history. Written from the crucible of California's water wars, combined with a family story of love and loss in the high desert Eastern Sierra Nevada, Kendra Atleework's book joins the great American accounts of the West, a step beyond Joan Didion, moving from a beloved geography into a jeopardized future. Kendra Atleework is that rare writer--capable of heart-stopping memoir while performing a work of keen observation and serious history. A work of stunning acuity and candor, essential reading, already a classic narrative.”

—Patricia Hampl, author of The Art of the Wasted Day