A New Mexico Mountain Life
with William deBuys
Published by UNM Press 1990, Trinity University Press, 2008
River of Traps combines words and photographs to tell the story of Jacobo Romero, an oldtime northern New mexico villager who befriends the authors and initiates them into knowledge of land, water, and a way of life long rooted in the mountain valley that became their common home. Critically acclaimed and widely admired, river of Traps has been justifiably called a western Classic. River of Traps, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and winner of the Evans Biography Award in 1990, is a portrait in words and photographs of all three men and of the place that shaped their lives.
“On a raft of perfectly crafted sentences, the book floats through the reader’s mind, buoyant and serene. DeBuys never exaggerates or sounds an awkward note, whether in tone or detail…Harris’ black and white photos are eloquent and distinctive…River of Traps is a thoroughly satisfying book, to look and to read…should be admired and read for a long time to come.”
— Congor Beasley, Jr., Kansas City Star“A beautiful tribute to a man and his work…Harris’s pictures deserve particular attention. They bring us with unparalleled clarity and simplicity into the presence of the old man, combining with the text to produce a memorial of grave and impressive dignity.”
— Robert M. Adams, New York Review of Books“Brims with gifts of language and vision…The poetry of the text is matched by Mr. Harris’s photographs, which are emotionally lean and visually rich.”
— Barbara Kingsolver, The New York Times Book Review
