Car Camping: The Book of Desert Adventures [Paperback]

Mark Sundeen (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 2, 2000

Hunter Thompson meets Bill Bryson in this hilarious narrative of travels throughout the Southwest.

He's like Huckleberry Finn

Sort of.

He's a twenty-two-year-old housepainter living at his parents' house in Southern California, across a four-lane street from a gated subdivision. Now this suburban innocent is striking out on the only type of adventure he can afford: he's getting into his station wagon and going camping in the desert.

Join Mark Sundeen on his rumble-tumble journey across the Southwest, and find that the mystical home of Butch Cassidy, Chief Cochise, and Major John Wesley Powell has been transformed into something entirely strange yet unexpectedly familiar. It's a new West of low-rent trailer parks and high-dollar houseboats, of hot-springs singles scenes and homeless river guides and hapless soul-searchers, for sun-beat old-timers chewing the cud of the land and survivalist teenagers hiding out form the Man. It's a place far from the America you thought you lived in, but close enough to drive to in your car. Car Camping is a modern-day western adventure in the spirit of Mark Twain and Jack London, and you're invited to come along.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Warning: Mark Sundeen's collection of desert adventures is not a guidebook. In fact, you're better off not trying to follow his lead in rafting Colorado's Arkansas River, camping in Rio Grande Gorge's no-camping area, or defecating over the rim of the Grand Canyon. But those hankering to get a handle on the New West will be intrigued by these episodic tales that unfold like the varying yet connected pitches on a colorful redrock climb. The narrator is a young itinerant house painter trying to figure out what is--and what is not--important in the world. His cousin and mentor Donny Brown confuses matters by preaching that the only important thing is the Right Now. Together they take off to see the splendors of the Southwest because in the desert "things are enormous and you can get on them." But soon the realities of Donny Brown's failing marriage interrupt the trip, and the narrator continues on alone, meeting odd pilgrims and misfits as he drifts from place to place. He reasons that it's easy to live in the Right Now if you're a rock star or independently wealthy; otherwise people think you're a poseur trying on hats.

If you don't have enough money to buy whatever you want, it's hard to prove that you are Yourself. And if you don't get money from your parents or a trust fund then you have to get a job, and then everyone can see that you're not really Yourself but some conformist instead.

Sundeen's voice, a sort of wise-kernel-of-truth-wrapped-in-a-shell-of-young-naivete, can be a bit cloying, especially amidst all the winking and nodding, but the evocation of youthful discovery is touching and even poetic at times as he meanders through a desiccated land of hobos, river guides, and spiritual seekers. Along the way the absurdities of the American West (the impoundment on the Colorado River named after John Wesley Powell, for instance) pile up like so much cow dung on a campfire. "A lot of people from big cities are moving into spiritual towns like Sedona and Telluride," the narrator observes,

where they can be Themself and get in touch with the Earth. A good spiritual town should have some Indians within 100 miles and good skiing or mountain biking within ten. The stores should sell turquoise bracelets and cappuccino, and there has to be a place to hook up a modem.

By the end of the journey through such scattered settlements you've learned a lot about the people who conquered the West and even more about their unlikely heirs. --Langdon Cook

About the Author

Mark Sundeen was born in 1970 in Harbor City, CA. He is co-founder, contributor, and managing editor of the ‘zine Great God Pan. This is his first book. He now lives in Utah.

Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Quill (HarperCollins); 1st edition (May 2, 2000)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0688174604
• ISBN-13: 978-0688174606
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.1 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 7.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.7 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (19 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #722,697 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Mark Sundeen is the author of The Man Who Quit Money, to be published by Riverhead/Penguin in early 2012. His nonfiction has appeared in the New York Times Magazine, Outside, National Geographic Adventure, the Believer, and elsewhere. His previous books are Car Camping (HarperCollins, 2000), The Making of Toro (Simon & Schuster, 2003), and North By Northwestern (St. Martin's, 2010, co-written with Sig Hansen), which was a New York Times and Wall Street Journal bestseller. He has taught fiction and nonfiction at the MFA creative writing programs at the University of New Mexico and Western Connecticut State University, as well as the Taos Summer Writers' Conference. He lives in Montana and Utah.r. Learn more at www.marksundeen.com

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars INCREDIBLE!!!!!!!!!!!, August 3, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: Car Camping: The Book of Desert Adventures (Paperback)

Never since I have read Mark Twain has a book so engrossed me in its adventure, its philosophy and ironic comedy. Sundeen has an incredible grasp of the ideosyncracies of the new west. River rats, psuedo-hippies or trustafarians, yuppies wanting to be hip in the new outdoor motif called extreme sports, latte and all. My hat is off to this bold and inspiring new writer. Let there be more!!! Mark, know there is a great fan base here in Gunnison.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Camping at its finest!, November 6, 2000

By 

Brian Delmastro (Manhattan Beach, CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Car Camping: The Book of Desert Adventures (Paperback)

Wow! Talk about adventures, or should I say misadventures. I was parched until I read Car Camping. Now, I thirst no more, even though your humor is as dry as the desert. Your stories are as real as they come. This book will take you on a ride to places that will make you wish you were there getting in on the action first hand. Car Camping is a lesson in life - try and get away from it all and you'll find yourself knee deep in the hoopla anyway. Highly entertaining and part history lesson, Car Camping is a fantastic collection of short stories. Kudos to you Mark Sundeen. Keep on camping and keep on writing. I can't wait for your next book.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars This is an amazing book!, August 17, 2001

By 

Tony (Oakland, CA United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Car Camping: The Book of Desert Adventures (Paperback)

Sundeen's writing style is engrossing, and after two pages, I was sucked into his world, and could not put it down. I loved the descriptive way he characterizes nature and people, at the same time. He shows us many similarities between the two, offering his amazing and amusing insight. My favorite part was the last few chapters, when he was living in an old bunker that an old Nazi built. It was the funniest part, but most of all, I loved the common theme that was woven throughout the book - how some of us strive to be alone, but we never truly are. At times, we are engrossed and repulsed by human actions every day, and Sundeen paints an accurate picture of that feeling.

I can't believe some people that reviewed this book didn't like it because they thought it was a travel book like Fodor's Guide to the Desert or something like that. How did they get that idea? Just read the back flap and you know what the book is about. If you want a Fodor's guide, go somewhere else. But if you want a great novel in the vein of On the Road or Travel's With Charley, buy this book!