The Last Beautiful Days of Autumn"Novelist John Nichols has written a beautiful paean to Taos, New Mexico and the surrounding country. He is by turns sentimental, harsh, lusty, and humorous. The landscape and the people come alive here in all their variety, depth, and richness. In fact, it is Nichols' evocation of character that brings forth the country's harsh beauty. This is an extraordinary personal essay about one of the most stunning sections of the country. LIBRARY JOURNAL "For a serious writer of fiction this nonfiction book is all the more remarkable in its honest account of one man's oassions. The prose soars in natural and physical description, whether Nichols reads a river for trout or exults in the sensuous details of lovemaking upon the earth. The beauty he invokes lingers like burning leaves. Or, in his own final words as he addresses that somewhat anonymous woman whose spirit haunts these pages: "Life as it should be, darlin." Purple prose and all." THE MILWAUKEE JOURNALThe Last Beautiful Days of Autumn is the second, and the centerpiece, in a trilogy of memoirs that John Nichols wrote about his fifteen years in Taos, New Mexico. The other volumes are If Mountains Die and On The Mesa.Nichol's other books include Wizard of Loneliness, The Sterile Cuckoo, the fiction trilogy-The Milagro Beanfield War, The Magic Journay, and Nivana Blues, A Ghost in the Music, American Blood, A Fragile Beauty, Elegy for September, Conjugal Bliss, and the nonfiction trilogy-If Mountains Die, The Last Beautiful Days of Autumn, and On The Mesa.
As evocative as the aspen foliage that enlivens the high country in October, 'The Last Beautiful Days of Autumn', originally published in 1982, is the centrepiece of a trilogy that John Nichols wrote about his first fifteen years in Taos, New Mexico. The other volumes are 'If Mountains Die' and 'On the Mesa'. Nichols defines his long sojourn in Taos as enthusiastically, poignantly-and humorously -- as any of the artists who have so richly evoked the spirit of our complex state. There are disquisitions on landscape, community, weather, old age, and the vagaries of time. Mountains, mesa, and river gorge loom prominently in every chapter. Personalities galore -- friends, enemies, soothsayers, and lovers-inhabit the narrative, and curious animals stroll about. Great sections on trout fishing, hunting, and rattlesnakes illuminate the story. Old timers filled with wisdom bequeath to Nichols their precious roots. Politics and mythologies shine throughout, and the authors famous magic realism occasionally rears its gaudy head to explicate a thorny situation. New Mexico past and present is on every page, and cautionary tales for the future also abound.
In the end, this is a classic and exuberant paean to the rhythm of life in a wonderful country.