A novel about a family in remote northern New Mexico and the village people whose idyllic life finally succumbs to tourists and the outside world by Pulitzer Prize winner Oliver La Farge.

Imagine yourself in a secluded green valley high in the mountains of northern New Mexico. You are one of a large family who own a sheep and cattle ranch surrounding the little village of Rociada. Your father, a Spaniard, is the revered and distinguished José Baca, and your mother, Doña Marguerite, is of French descent. Everyone in the village loves and respects your family as their patrones, appealing to them in times of trouble and bringing them gifts at Christmas.

Out of the everyday life of the Baca family, the village people, their customs and superstitions, Oliver La Farge has drawn, for example, the touching story of young Pino’s disillusionment with his hero, the horse thief Pascual. Or there is the account of the wedding shoes that pinched until the bride was in tears. Then there is Carmen’s discovery of treachery in the unlit hovel of the blind religious and the amusing tale of how Pino was punished for his arrogance the night the Archbishop came to dinner.

But beneath this rippling surface of adventure, tenderness, and humor rides the gradual encroachment of the outside world on Rociada, one of the last survivals of the ancient Spanish way of life in the United States. Finally, this idyllic village succumbs to the invasion of tourists and the machine, and Rociada becomes only a dream of the past.

Born in 1901, Oliver Hazard Perry La Farge is ranked among the literary lions of Southwestern letters. Since he died in 1963, his reputation has continued to grow and new honors have been added to his name. Laughing Boy, a novel of Navajo life, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1930, putting his name in lights before he was 30. Of his many books, Behind the Mountains has earned the affection of Santa Feans and New Mexicans, who continue to regard the book as a regional classic. Santa Fe has changed a great deal—more than most people are prepared to acknowledge—since Oliver La Farge died. The small-town atmosphere with “its warmth and rewards” he often spoke of and admired is swiftly becoming a thing of the past. But with his name appropriately enshrined over the doorway of a library in Santa Fe, perhaps the Modern Age will not be inclined to forget his love for the city and for the people of the American Southwest.

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Hardcover:
6 X 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-430-7
224 pp.,$36.95

Softcover:
6 X 9
ISBN: 978-0-86534-676-5
224 pp.,$24.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-524-2
224 pp.,$5.99

The true story of one of the greatest American Indian chiefs, Cochise of the Chiricahua Apaches, told in fictional form.

This is the true story, told in fictional form, of one of the greatest of all American Indian chiefs, Cochise of the Chiricahua Apaches. Indians were once thought of as warlike, and the encroaching white men as wanting peace, but it was the white men who forced Cochise into war against his will. History tells us that Cochise and his tiny band of warriors not only held the United States Army at bay for more than ten years, but they were often on the offensive. It is a heroic and extraordinary story. The story ends with the equally extraordinary way in which peace was made, when Major General Howard, the Bible-reading soldier, and Cochise, the religious-minded warrior, found that they could trust each other. The many illustrations are by L. F. Bjorklund, well-known for the accuracy of his interpretation of Indian scenes. The book also includes a new foreword by Marc Simmons and “An Appreciation” by John Pen La Farge.

Born in 1901, Oliver Hazard Perry La Farge is ranked among the literary lions of American Southwestern letters. Since his death in 1963, his reputation has continued to grow and new honors have been added to his name. Laughing Boy, a novel of Navajo life, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1930, putting his name in lights before he was thirty.

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Hardcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-582-3
222 pp.,$34.95

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6 x 9
ISBN: 978-0-86534-675-8
222 pp.,$24.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-642-3
222 pp.,$7.99

New Foreword by Marc Simmons and An Appreciation by John Pen La Farge

In his first book, the Pulitzer Prize novel Laughing Boy, Oliver La Farge gave us a superb lyrical story of Navajo Indian life. In the fullness of his maturity as a writer, he later returned to the Navajo scene with The Enemy Gods, a richer, deeper book than he had written before and its theme, both an absorbing story and a living social document, is nearer to his heart.

It centers around Myron Begay—Divine Arrow is his Indian name—a young Navajo who is apparently won away from his tribe until he believes that he can solve the problem of life by making an imitation white man out of himself. Never able to escape from what he really is—a potential leader of his own people—he becomes more and more confused until he finally breaks down and commits murder.

As one under a curse, Myron instinctively goes back into the Navajo country where he drifts as a lost soul. Through a series of superb scenes, the story rises to the final emotional crisis leading to the solution of his life.

Born in 1901, Oliver Hazard Perry La Farge is ranked among the literary lions of American Southwestern letters. Since his death in 1963, his reputation has continued to grow and new honors have been added to his name. Laughing Boy, a novel of Navajo life, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1930, putting his name in lights before he was 30.

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Hardcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-523-6
364 pp.,$39.95

Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-0-86534-671-0
364 pp.,$29.95

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ISBN: 978-1-61139-537-2
364 pp.,$5.99

New Foreword by Marc Simmons and An Appreciation by John Pen La Farge

From 1950 until just before his death in 1963, Pulitzer Prize winner (for Laughing Boy) Oliver La Farge wrote weekly columns for The Santa Fe New Mexican—a total of some 350,000 words. A collection of these writings was edited in 1966 by his friend, Winfield Townley Scott and published as The Man With the Calabash Pipe.

As Scott says in his introduction, “Though often in the background, and with much said relevant to anywhere in America, a strong sense of place permeates these essays, whatever their matter. The Southwest in general, Santa Fe in particular, became his locus classicus—or his pulpit.” Sometimes the “observations” that take place in some of the pieces in this collection are between La Farge and his alter ego, the “Man With the Calabash Pipe,” thus the title of the book, and they are marvels of rueful humor. In others the author enjoys his talks with his imaginary friend, Horned Husband Kachina Chief from Awatovi. In writing about Santa Fe, La Farge scolded, reprimanded, corrected, reminded, berated, bemoaned, rejoiced in, and urged on the town in a dozen moods, always out of a fierce devotion. His comments on “Writing the Language” are salutatory as well as amusing. Then, in and out of these essays wanders that Man With the Calabash Pipe—a sardonic bachelor who refuses to light his heater since a likeable mouse is in residence underneath it.

Scott continues, “…I think any reader who never had to the luck to know Oliver La Farge will touch the man as nowhere else in his work save perhaps that revealing autobiography, Raw Material; and will be touched and will come to feel the overtones of a unique, complex individual.”

Born in 1901, Oliver Hazard Perry La Farge is ranked among the literary lions of Southwestern letters. Since he died in 1963, his reputation has continued to grow and new honors have been added to his name. Laughing Boy, a novel of Navajo life, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1930, putting his name in lights before he was 30.

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Hardcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-581-6
300 pp.,$38.95

Softcover:
6 x 9
ISBN: 978-0-86534-679-6
300 pp.,$26.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-643-0
300 pp.,$3.99

Illustrated, English/Spanish, bibliography

Order from Sunstone: (505) 988-4418

The mother ditch, or acequia madre, is the main water line that is dug by hand and feeds many of the smaller acequias that cover the fertile land of Northern New Mexico. The acequias, water ditches, were used to irrigate the fields of crops for many farmers in the early days of settlement in New Mexico. A unique technology, the acequia, especially the mother ditch, had to be taken care of by everyone in the community that benefited from its generosity. A governing body was established to watch over the utilization and maintenance of the ditch. The mayordomo was the top elected official to preside over the governing council, and he was also required to perform numerous responsibilities representative of the people of the community. The acequia was truly one of the last vestiges of a life where people depended on each other for survival. The life of the community revolved around the acequia. Cooperation was essential to ensure everyone’s sustenance. Today, many of the acequias the early settlers of New Mexico depended on have dried up. Yet, when one stands in the footings of these sand pits, you can feel the presence of the power of water that was so significant to the development of human progress in this part of the continent. English and Spanish edition.

Oliver La Farge, winner of the Pulitzer Prize for Laughing Boy, originally published The Mother Ditch in 1954 as a children’s book. It is more vital and informative to us today than it was then. A genteel, intellectual New Englander, La Farge had discovered another world on the Navajo Reservation and, later, among the Hispanic villagers of Northern New Mexico. He spent much of his career as a writer sending messages back to the East proclaiming what he had found. Other books by Oliver La Farge from Sunstone Press include: Behind the Mountains, Cochise of Arizona, The Enemy Gods, The Man with the Calabash Pipe, A Pause in the Desert, and Raw Material.

Website: http://books.google.com/books?id=TBSGxrwbz0cC

Softcover:
8 1/2 x 8 1/2
ISBN: 978-0-86534-009-1
64 pp.,$16.95

A collection of stories dedicated to the human condition with An Appreciation by Pen La Farge.

Oliver La Farge covers many aspects of everyday life in these sixteen stories, which range from an old man facing death alone in the Mexican bush to some boys facing the responsibilities of life at St. Peter’s school; from the science fiction world of computing machines to the world of gourmets; and from the violent death of a man off the Rhode Island coast to the quiet death of a marriage in New Mexico.

The variety of stories in this wide-ranging collection are sure to fit the taste and mood and any reader interested in the human condition through the clear grace of La Farge’s timeless writing.

Born in 1901, Oliver Hazard Perry La Farge is ranked among the literary lions of American Southwestern letters. Since his death in 1963, his reputation has continued to grow and new honors have been added to his name. Laughing Boy, a novel of Navajo life, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1930, putting his name in lights before he was 30.

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Hardcover:
6 X 9
ISBN: 978-1-63293-580-9
276 pp.,$36.95

Softcover:
6 X 9
ISBN: 978-0-86534-677-2
276 pp.,$26.95

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ISBN: 978-1-61139-234-0
276 pp.,$3.99

The Autobiographical Examination of an Artist’s Journey into Maturity including An Appreciation by John Pen La Farge.

The long, uneasy armistice between two world wars was a trying time for literary artists, particularly for those young men who came to maturity in that period of economic and social upheaval. Oliver La Farge’s frank and honest personal narrative is a typical life of one born into the easy world of Newport, New York, Groton, and Harvard, dumped into the melting pot of the Great Depression, and then slammed up against the global war. His purpose “to record the America of one individual” and to set down the raw material from which the writer derives the finished product he offers to the world, is vividly fulfilled in this book.

In an Appreciation appearing in this new edition, John Pen La Farge says: “In his autobiography, Raw Material, Father wrote a superior account of one man’s life. As Mother pointed out, it was superior because it was not a mere accounting of what, when, how, and in what order, rather, it was the account of how the raw material of one boy grew into a man, a man whose life both displayed and sought out true integrity.”

Born in 1901, Oliver Hazard Perry La Farge is ranked among the literary lions of Southwestern letters. Since he died in 1963, his reputation has continued to grow and new honors have been added to his name. Laughing Boy, a novel of Navajo life, won the Pulitzer Prize in 1930, putting his name in lights before he was 30.

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Softcover:
6 X 9
ISBN: 978-0-86534-673-4
356 pp.,$24.95

eBook:
ISBN: 978-1-61139-371-2
356 pp.,$6.99