The Magic Journey: A Novel - Hardcover

Nichols, John Treadwell

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0030153565 ISBN 13: 9780030153563

Publisher: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston, 1978

Synopsis

Boom times came to the forgotten little southwestern town of Chamisaville just as the rest of America was in the Great Depression. They came when a rattletrap bus loaded with stolen dynamite blew sky high, leaving behind a giant gushing hot spring. Within minutes, the town's wheeler-dealers had organized, and within a year, Chamisaville was flooded with tourists and pilgrims. The wheeler-dealers were rich -- and that was only the beginning . . .

About this title

From the Back Cover:

Boom times came to the forgotten little southwestern town of Chamisaville just as the rest of America was in the Great Depression. They came when a rattletrap bus loaded with stolen dynamite blew sky-high, leaving behind a giant gushing hot spring. Within minutes, the town's wheeler-dealers had organized, and within a year, Chamisaville was flooded with tourists and pilgrims, and the wheeler-dealers were rich.

Spanning forty years, The Magic Journey tells the tale of how progress transformed a rural backwater into a boomtown. At first, it was a magic time for Chamisaville -- almost as if every day were a holiday. But the euphoria gradually dissipated, and the land-hungry developers, speculators, and interlopers moved in. Finally, the day came when Chamisaville's people found themselves all but displaced, their children no longer heirs to their land or their traditions. With mounting intensity, The Magic Journey reaches a climax that is tragically foreordained. A sensitive, vital, and honest chronicle of life in America's Southwest, it is also an incisive commentary on what America has become on its road to progress.

About the Author:

John Nichols's New Mexico trilogy, inaugurated in 1974 with the publication of The Milagro Beanfield War, has grown from regional stature to national appeal, from literary radicals to cult classics. Beloved for his compassionate, richly comic vision and admired for his insight into the cancer that accompanies unbridled progress, Nichols is the author of nine novels and six works of nonfiction. He lives in northern New Mexico.

About this edition

• Publisher: Holt, Rinehart, and Winston
• Publication date: 1978
• ISBN 10: 0030153565
• ISBN 13: 9780030153563
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 529