Edge of Taos Desert: An Escape to Reality

by Mabel Dodge Luhan

Book Overview

In 1917 Mabel Sterne, patron of the arts and spokeswoman for the New York avant-garde, came to the Southwest seeking a new life. This autobiographical account, long out-of-print, of her first few months in New Mexico is a remarkable description of an Easterner's journey to the American West. It is also a great story of personal and philosophical transformation. The geography of New Mexico and the culture of the Pueblo Indians opened a new world...

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0826309712
• ISBN13: 9780826309716
• Release Date: April 1987
• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
• Length: 364 Pages
• Weight: 0.60 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.0" x 8.9"

Customer Reviews

Mabel elucidates the unspoiled native Southwest with her extraordinary skills of observation

I found this book intriguing, well-written and hard to put down. In the year of the Russian revolution, Mabel Dodge Sterne, at age 38, newly married to her third husband, artist Maurice Sterne, abandoned her high society life in Florence and New York City and moved to Taos. This, the fourth volume of her autobiographies starts with her arrival by train in Santa Fe. So eager was she to reach her destination that she left the slow train and hailed a car and driver to take her the rest of the way. But when the car breaks down she reboards the train. After a few weeks in Santa Fe she finally goes to Taos and immediately rents an apartment to the consternation of Maurice who plans to return to NY. An unusual woman who doesn't take no for an answer, she slowly adapts some of her ways to the culture of the Indians in Taos Pueblo, and soon she has established an emotional connection with Indian Tony Luhan. There are marvelous descriptions of their adventures, and the purchase of an adobe house and expansion of that house by Tony and his builders. Mabel spends time every day at the pueblo, learning from the Indian way of life and teaching knitting skills to the women. Eventually Mabel knows that she will be connected to Tony for the rest of her life and she gives Maurice a date to move out. After only one year of marriage, Maurice returns to NYC never to see Mabel again. At the end of the book, Tony moves into Mabel's adobe and the blending of their lives and cultures is complete. Yet he still maintains his family relationships with his Indian wife Candelaria and family in the Pueblo. How this was managed is not explained. Mabel's son John, a collector of Spanish folkart, lives with them. Their large house becomes a hub of social and artistic activity as Mabel invites artists, writers and intellectuals as guests. Tony carefully maintains his Indian identity and is usually silent with Anglo guests. Mabel trusts his intuitions completely. He not only builds and maintains their home and guest houses, but also farms the land for alfalfa and oats, and is a respected leader in the Pueblo. They have a farm full of animals. An account of their first year together is written in Mabel's other book, "Winter in Taos" which is a classic. It seems that Mabel Dodge Luhan's great wealth allowed her to create the life she dreamed of, without constraints. Sometimes she could be selfish and cruel toward friends but was at heart a generous woman. Eventually she built a hospital for the town of Taos. Her philosophy of living in the moment and being very alert and aware to everything around her provided her with the keen observations that make for such interesting reading. That philosophy also foreshadows the current 21st Century obsession with living in the moment and minimizing past and future. I sensed the vivid sights, sounds and smells of Taos from her writing. Writings from other Taosenos help to fill in the blanks: Frieda Lawrence, wife of writer D.H., English artist Do

This book is wonderful!!!

This book was absolutely amazing! If you are reading this, stop and just go and buy the book. If you love the Taos region, you will enjoy it even more. Perfectly written. Makes one feel like staying home from work and reading in front of a crackleing fire with the dog at your feet and the cat in your lap, covered with your favorite blanket your grandmother made for you. (A cup of hot chocolate or tea would be great too!)You will not be disapointed.

Taos Edge of the Desert by Mable Dodge

I really loved this book - beautifully written and it is a wonderful look at Taos and the Pueblo in the early 1900's. My daughter has orderd the next one, "Winter in Taos" as a Mother's Day gift.Luhan is a most unusual person with a very beautiful outlook on the high desert and it's people.

Significant Historical Literature

In December of 1917, Mabel Dodge Sterne and her husband, artist Maurice Sterne, made their way up to Taos in an unforgettable journey up the rural road. Mabel immediately connected spiritually and emotionally with Taos and was drawn to find a place to stay. "Edge of Taos Desert" is the story of her personal transformation during her first year in Taos. In many ways, this book is an insightful commentary on Santa Fe and Taos in 1918. Mabel's description of the physical and cultural environment is vivid. She describes the Mexicans bringing in wood by burro to sell as well the first time she saw an Indian. Careful readers will discern the conflicts and prejudices between the Pueblo people, the Mexicans, and the more newly arrived Anglos. She provides many priceless early observations of the region that may best be understood by readers who have some knowledge of New Mexico history and culture. However, understanding Mabel's history may provide more information about the significance of this book.Mabel Dodge Luhan grew up in a wealthy family that left her emotionally bankrupt. She spent years of her adult life looking for the fulfillment of her emptiness. She was a renaissance woman in Italy, and then a salon hostess in New York, hosting conversations with some of the brightest minds of her time. She was a radical modernist looking for a solution to the American ills brought on by the Industrial Revolution. "Edge of Taos Desert" is the most important autobiographical chapter in her life because, in the Pueblo people, she believed that she had found a solution to both her emotional emptiness and America's discontentment. Her role in the future became to draw artists to Taos to write about and paint the people, the place, and the culture in order that it might be saved and that, we, as Americans might also save ourselves with what we'd learned. She had a messianic vision of utopia with the Victorian belief that a woman's role was to support others. She found her own voice, though, in writing her autobiographies and several other books. "Edge of Taos Desert" is a beautifully written literary piece. She journeys through with strong social and cultural observations and a bold confidence and irreverence that allows her to see what a white woman of her time would not have been allowed to see. By August of 1918, her third husband (Sterne) has returned to New York, and she enters the door of being one of the most infamous Taoseno's in that town's history with a poignant and personal tale to tell.

A beautiful description of New Mexico in l9l7

This book is a rare jem. The writing is of unparralled beauty and perception. Mabel Dodge Lujan describes her arrival in Taos, New Mexico in l9l7. Lujan has come from New York city where she was a wealthy socialite involved in various art and political/psychological cicles (She was the former lover of John Reed who was portrayed by Warren Beatty in the movie Reds). She has come to Taos to reunite with her husband, the artist Maurice Stearn. However, almost imediately she finds that the town of Taos, and especially the Indians of the neighboring pueblo, are awakening the depths of her in a sublime and inevitable way. She describes how this process of conversion from a relatively shallow person (though an earnest seeker of truth), to one who begins to understand and feel the life beyond herself is catalyzed by the Indian Tony Lujan, whom she later marries. The story is really a spiritual one, but never described as such. Rather one only feels the utter humility of this women in the face of a way of life that increasingly draws her to it while also drawing her to the depth of herself. Her descriptions of the Indian life of the pueblo must be some of the finest ever crafted about native Americans.