The Desert Cries: A Season of Flash Floods in a Dry Land [Paperback]

Craig Childs (Author), Regan Choi (Illustrator)

Book Description

Publication Date: April 2002

Flash floods spread violence and fear over the land. And yet, they sometimes bring peace and grace. You will meet survivors whose stories explain such a paradox. Gripping stories of five flash floods that raged in the Grand Canyon and elsewhere in Arizona within a two-month span and killed 22 people.

Editorial Reviews

Review

Craig Childs does with words what Picasso did with paint -- he's absolutely wonderful. -- Jana Bommersbach, The Arizona Republic, April 25, 2002

From the Publisher

When author Craig Childs tackles a project, we have learned to expect great things. His first book for Arizona Highways, GRAND CANYON: TIME BELOW THE RIM, won the Publishers Marketing Association's Benjamin Franklin Award for Best Nature Book of 1999. In 2002 he again brought home the Ben Franklin Award with THE SOUTHWEST'S CONTRARY LAND.

Now, in THE DESERT CRIES, Childs takes readers on a dramatic read into the roiling bellies of five flash floods that swept across the desert and through canyons in August and September of 1997, killing 19 people in Arizona alone.

The author summarizes the book this way:

"Illegal migrants from Mexico were swept through a storm drain while crossing the border. Eleven hikers perished as a wall of water plunged through a majestic slot canyon, leaving only their guide alive. More vanished in a flood down Phantom Canyon in the Grand Canyon. Surrounding these deadly floods came still more where, miraculously, no one was killed. At 90 miles per hour a passenger train plunged into a flooding arroyo near Kingman, Arizona. Two hundred people fled to safety as the Grand Canyon's Havasu Canyon flooded, exploding rafts and kayaks out of its mouth into the Colorado River.

"This book chronicles the events of that summer, some of them only two days apart. While working on a master's thesis focusing primarily on the dynamics of desert floods, I turned my attention to these accumulating disasters. I found that in a land commonly believed to be free of floods, people were dying each summer like clockwork. I spoke to survivors and to rescuers who exhumed bodies from the deep mud of canyon floors. I studies radar imagery of the storms in question and retraced each event in painful detail.

"Like the floods themselves, this is a swift, sudden book. It throws the stories out as quickly as they happened. Each story is intense and brief, giving insight into the hydrology of a slot canyon flood, or the natural movement of thunderstorms, but focusing on the details of what happened as those very moments. This book is not written to sensationalize. It is merely an offering of stories."

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Product Details

• Paperback: 140 pages
• Publisher: Arizona Highways Books; First Edition, First Printing edition (April 2002)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1893860647
• ISBN-13: 978-1893860643
• Product Dimensions: 7.5 x 6.1 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (3 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #654,748 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

20 of 20 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Narrative Nonficiton At Its Best, March 18, 2004

By 

Andrea Lankford (California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Desert Cries: A Season of Flash Floods in a Dry Land (Paperback)

While on a recent trip to Anza Borrego Desert State Park, I saw The Desert Cries: A season of Flash Floods in a Dry Land on the shelf in the visitor center. Since I knew a thing or two about flash floods, I flipped through a few pages. Yikes. I was in it, and it wasn't an entirely flattering depiction. But of course, I had to buy the book. That night, while camped in a desert wash, I read The Desert Cries by flashlight. "This is good!" I said to my husband who was waiting for me to stop reading so I would turn off the headlamp and he could get some sleep. The book was too suspenseful to put down.

In this harrowing tale of nature's beauty and wrath, Craig Childs vividly depicts the fates of people whose lives have been changed forever by five flash floods. Unfortunately, not all of them make it out alive. The illustrator, Regan Choi, provides grim and shadowy views that supplement the stories well. Even if you've never seen a flash flood, you will have "felt" one by the time you finish this book. The author's fine balance between detail and drama builds a cinematic tension that both satisfies and horrifies. Set in the stunning landscapes of the Southwest, these stories are outdoor adventure narrative at its best. And they are all true.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars outstanding, February 28, 2007

By 

Snooze (Avon, IN USA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Desert Cries: A Season of Flash Floods in a Dry Land (Paperback)

This is a superbly written page turner, and not just for those who are attracted to the power of the southwest. The book is thrilling without being sensationalist. Childs is a lyrical writer who immerses the reader in his environs. I bought this book after thoroughly enjoying The Secret Knowledge of Water, and was not disappointed.

5.0 out of 5 stars Excellent reading, February 16, 2011

By 

Vivia Giovannini "Vivia" (CA) - See all my reviews

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: The Desert Cries: A Season of Flash Floods in a Dry Land (Paperback)

As usual, Childs writes in his poetic style of the uniqueness of the desert Southwest. Compelling work. Everyone who attempts hiking the deserts of Arizona, Utah, New Mexico or California, should read this book first!