Lasso the Wind: Away to the New West

The American West has always been as much a symbol as a location; as much a myth as a destination. "If land and religion are what people most often kill each other over," writes Timothy Egan, "then the West is different only in that the land is the religion. As such, the basic struggle is between the West of possibility and the West of possession." This struggle for possession is a recurring theme in Lasso the Wind, involving individuals such as Kit Laney, the "Last Cowboy in America," who defiantly refuses to pay for grazing rights on public land; Patricia Mulroy, the head of the Southern Nevada Water Authority, who works to bring more water to Las Vegas' casinos, golf courses, and subdivisions, even if it means damming the Virgin River running through Zion National Park in Utah; and Robert P. McCulloch, a zealous developer who reassembled each stone of the London Bridge in the Arizona desert in an attempt to draw people to his contrived dream town. These 14 enlightening and entertaining essays are the result of Egan's tour of the 11 states "on the sunset side of the 100th meridian," which led him from remote villages without road access to sprawling suburbs carved out of parched earth and desert rock in an attempt to see how the history of the West--binding myths and all--has left its imprint on the West's present condition.

The Pacific Northwest correspondent for the New York Times and a first-rate storyteller, Egan writes with humor and a gimlet eye, proving himself a reliable guide to a wildly diverse region on the cusp of old and new. --Shawn Carkonen