Tom Zoellner: Rim to River: Looking into the Heart of Arizona
6PM WEDNESDAY, MARCH 22
This event is free and open to the public.
The Pacific Northwest Trail has Cheryl Strayed. The Appalachian Trail has Bill Bryson. And now the 790-mile Arizona Trail has Tom Zoellner. The nationally acclaimed author visits with images and stories about his experiences and discoveries while hiking his home-state trail, the topic of his new book Rim to River: Looking into the Heart of Arizona.
ABOUT THE LIVE EVENT
- Masks are recommended.
ABOUT THE BOOK
Tom Zoellner walked across the length of Arizona to come to terms with his home state. But the trip revealed more mountains behind the mountains.
Rim to River is the story of this extraordinary journey through redrock country, down canyons, up mesas, and across desert plains to the obscure valley in Mexico that gave the state its enigmatic name. The trek is interspersed with incisive essays that pick apart the distinctive cultural landscape of Arizona: the wine-colored pinnacles and complex spirituality of Navajoland, the mind-numbing stucco suburbs, desperate border crossings, legislative skullduggery, extreme politics, billion-dollar copper ventures, dehydrating rivers, retirement kingdoms, old-time foodways, ghosts of old wars, honky-tonk dreamers, murder mysteries, and magical Grand Canyon reveries.
In Rim to River, Zoellner does for Arizona what Larry McMurtry did for Texas in In a Narrow Grave and what Wallace Stegner did for Utah in Mormon Country: paint an enduring portrait of a misunderstood American state. An indictment, a love letter, and a homecoming story all at once.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Tom Zoellner is a fifth-generation Arizonan, former staff writer for the Arizona Republic, and the author of eight nonfiction books, including Island on Fire, which won the 2020 National Book Critics Circle Award.
