Mary Sojourner's New Novel of Finding Yourself, Community, and Place, in the Desert
By Steve Brown
“I care about the bees,” Monkey said. “I care about the desert tortoises. I care about little bugs you can’t even see. I care about the dirt bikes ripping the shit out of ancient Indian geoglyphs. I care about how the big biz solar companies are going to nuke this desert. I care about all of it. And I can’t do a fucking thing. All I seem to be able to do is promise myself I’ll change and watch myself fail.
- 29
One of the most talented desert folk whom I don’t get to see as often as I’d like these days is writer Mary Sojourner. I’m hoping to remedy that this winter, and if I get the chance, I’ll be dragging her onto my TV series as well as hosting one of her book readings and signings, or one of her fantastic writing workshops.
In the meantime, I got the chance to read her latest work, 29, and caught up with her long enough to ask her some questions about the book, its characters, and how it all came about.
29 isn’t your normal book, but then, it’s a desert book, written by a desert author about the desert and the characters who are part of the desert themselves. It’s a book of transformation, as only the desert can transform. It’s not all in this realm, but then as anyone who is paying attention out here can tell you, even a trip to the grocery store can take you through several dimensions and the occasional walk on the astral plane.
Funny how you can find yourself when it seems you are most lost. I don’t want to give too much away, but in 29, That’s just what happens.....
SR: When we are introduced to the character Nell she doesn’t just seem to be undergoing a life transition when she loses her job, but rather a transformation on every level. Transformation seems to woven throughout the book. Did you plan for that to be the case, or did it evolve that way?
MS: The Mojave made me do it. I’d talked about transformation all my life, but in 2008 I moved to a little cabin on Luna Mesa Drive. My life in Flagstaff, Arizona was gone—closest friends gone, the man I believed to be the love of my life gone, the scrap lumber and wallboard cabin I’d rented for 25 years gone, Flagstaff become a gentrified caricature of the town it had once been. The publishing industry had become just that —a corporation-driven industry. By the time I found myself on Yucca Mesa, I was almost empty. The desert took what was left. I didn’t set out to write a transformative novel, but as I told truth and lies, 29 became one.
SR: Was this inspired by real people and events?
MS: Yes. And, it was inspired by desert road trips; the kindness of the people I met in 29, J. Tree and Yucca Valley; hiking a 25 mile square of BLM land near the landfill so often that I’d cross my own bootprints. The 29 Palms Chemehuevi who fight the industrial solar power plan are composites of friends who live on the Chemehuevi River Rez—and other Native Americans with whom I’ve worked on sacred land battles. I learned about the Blythe Intaglios from a ferocious article in The Sun Runner a few years after I’d moved away. I learned a hell of a lot from this mag! Thank you, Steve, for what you do.
I was not surprised by the directions 29 took—except for the remarkable connections that formed between Nell and her mother. I suspect the ghost of my own mother may have had a hand in them.
SR: Where did the concept of Leafy come from?
MS: The Leafy Sea Dragon lives in the Long Beach Aquarium of the Pacific, though it’s home-waters are off the southwestern coast of Australia. S/he helped me believe again the wonder of the impossible—and the ordinary.
SR: As Nell decides to make a new start instead of ending it all (or at least chooses to postpone ending it all for the time), she is led to the desert and Twentynine Palms. How did you decide to base the story in 29?
MS: I first wrote 29 in three months in the summer of 2007 as a way to clear out the pain of the loss of the beloved man (who became Monkey in the novel). I had set it in Tucson. I put it away. In the early winter of 2013, my publisher asked me if I had a novel. I blithely said, “Sure.” I hung up the phone, hyperventilated and knew I had to gut about half the novel and write a new half. As I dove back in, I couldn’t feel Tucson—much of my writing emerges from place. I thought of 29 and it was perfect. It continues to be strange and magical to me that the year I spent in 29, J. Tree and Yucca Valley was the second hardest year of my life—and the most precious to me. I come back as often as a writer’s budget will allow me.
SR: What qualities do you find in the desert that are useful for writing?
MS: Everything. Light, emptiness, fullness, heat lightning, Joshua trees, tracks, the remains of homeless folks’ campsites and the Friday night buffet at Royal House of Siam.
SR: Can the desert transform someone? How has it effected you?
MS: I can only speak for myself. The desert burned out what needed to be ash. The desert gave me twelve Full Moon risings that soothed the burns. The desert people reminded me that there could be decency and raw wit.
SR: Throughout the story, there is an undercurrent of dangerous changes underway in the environment, from the initial disappearance of bees in a dream, to the arrival of industrial scale renewable energy projects that threaten the desert. These environmental issues come across as both real physical threats, and something deeper, something more spiritual and archetypal. Are we facing a larger, deeper threat from these issues than it appears on the surface?
MS: I believe in Monkey’s trances. I believe that we are destroying that which we could save. We are eradicating a path that might lead us to our true home.
SR: Music also plays an important role in 29. Again, it seems to have a deeper meaning and dust radio seems to be more than just oldies. From Salt Songs to Monkey’s play lists, it bears significance to the characters. How did you decide to use music in the book to transmit meaning and connection between the characters?
MS: Rhythm and blues, rock and roll saved my life as I moved through years abraded by bad genes and bad choices. The real Monkey courted me with music, we made love with music. We were both from generations who drew much of our wisdom and joy from music. Chris Whitley’s song, Dust Radio, still seems to me an anthem for the Mojave.
SR: In the book, it talks about teaching the Salt Trail songs with the quote, “But before I teach you this song, I need to break your heart.” Is a broken heart necessary to understanding what the desert offers us?
MS: It was for me. It was for Nell. There’s nothing like being set down hard on your ass to crack your heart. If you’re lucky, you end up with nowhere to run. If you’re even luckier, you find yourself on Luna Mesa Road, flat out of everything, a 115-degree day busting those cracks wide open. If you can sit tight, the song arrives—with a little help from your friends.
Mary Sojourner’s 29 is published by Torrey House Press and is available through IndieBound, Barnes & NNoble, and Amazon.com.
An
excerpt
from
29
a
novel
by
Mary
Sojourner
(Nell Walker has fled to 29 Palms to either crash or burn. Mariah is a local, a Chemehuevi leader, Punkin is her
new-born grand-daughter.)
“Do you want to say what happened?” Nell asked.
“Sure,” Mariah said, “I’d gone out to a little wash that I go to to talk to my grandmother’s grandmother. Not a cemetery, just a place. I go there mostly to thank her for the good stuff in my life. I came around a bend in the wash and these plastic ribbons and stakes were all along the edge. I was going up closer to see what name was on them, when somebody grabbed my arms hard from behind. I never saw them. They tied a rag around my eyes. A guy said, ‘This didn’t happen. You stay away from here and if you tell the cops, we’ll get Punkin. Don’t move till you hear a horn honk. If you do, something worse could happen.’
“I waited till I heard the horn. Then I took off the rag and climbed up the side of the wash. There wasn’t anything but a bunch of dust moving away toward town. I checked the stakes. They were marked with a name: FreegreenGlobal. I went back down and sat on the sand for a while and talked with my great-great-grandma, then I got myself here. I checked out FreegreenGlobal on the internet a few days ago. It’s a huge international solar power company. I tried to track if there was an owner company but there were nothing but dead ends.”
“I might have a way to help with that,” Nell said. “But, in the meantime, we need to get the cops out there.”
“No,” Mariah said. “No cops. But I’ll tell you more or less where it is so you don’t go out there. It’s off Mesa, out west of the Base. You’ll see a compound with barbed wire and a lot of dogs. The wash runs to the west of it. Don’t go out there. Even if I hadn’t gotten jumped, it’s not a place for white people. Plus the old guy that lives in the compound is a crazy man.”
“Don’t worry,” Nell said. “I’m just getting used to being here. I’m not ready to go much beyond town.”
Diamond sat down. “You better get ready,” she said. “There’s just enough light for you to see something you won’t believe. Mariah, we’re taking Nell up to Luna Mesa. Want to go?”
“I’m whipped. I want to get Punkin and me settled in for the night. You ladies have fun.”
Diamond parked at the side of a dirt road. “That’s the dump straight ahead,” she said. “Don’t let it prejudice you.”
Nell looked out at miles of sand, shrubs, and Joshua trees.
“You’re wondering what the big deal is, aren’t you?” Shiloh said. “Let’s get out.”
They walked along the dirt road. The air was soft, the sun dropping toward the mountains. Diamond stepped off the road into the sand. “I’ll walk point,” she said. “Snakes and scorpions just love city girls in blinged-out flip-flops.”
“Shut up,” Nell said. “I’ve walked scarier places than this in these.”
“Uh huh. You so bad.”Diamond stopped. “Okay, we’re here.”
“Where?”
“In Oz. Watch out for the flying monkeys.”
Nell almost believed her. The twisted silhouettes of the trees and the absolute silence were not of any earth she’d known. “Where are the monkeys?”
“They’re not out yet.”
“Where’s Oz?”
“Just look,” Shiloh said. “Let your eyes be desert eyes.”
Shiloh and Diamond went quiet for what seemed like a long time. Nell looked out toward a cluster of big Joshuas. A trail of pebbles led out from them, as though water had once flowed there. Then it seemed as though her gaze softened. She saw a pale yellow mist running along the edge of the pebbles.
“What is that?” she said. “The yellow.”
“Coreopsis,” Shiloh said. “Now check what’s growing near that creosote.”
“What’s creosote?”
“The shrub right in front of you. See the purple flowers next to it?”
There was a patch of dark green crinkled leaves and spiky buds with tiny purple flowers on them. “Chia,” Shiloh said. “You can eat the seeds, grind them into flour, make a gel that’s good for your skin. Mariah takes Diamond and me on walks out here. She says a person could feed themselves just from this desert.” She spun in a circle. “And there’s Smoketree and Mojave Aster and primrose and, right here on the edge of this wash, a desert lily. Look down into it.”
Nell looked into the lily. Delicate yellow sepals sprang up in its white throat. She thought of the Leafy, of the living green streamers, the translucent fins. Diamond and Shiloh stood next to her. “Can’t talk, right?” Diamond said. “That’s what this place will do to you. If you’re lucky.”