The Devil's Highway crosses a stretch of borderland desert in northern Mexico where many immigrants have traveled—and too many have died. It is a despoblado where desperate people defend secret
Bill Broyles knows this ground as well as any man is likely to ever know it. Michael Berman has brought a fresh and clean eye to ancient stone and sun. Forget the calendar art—forget art for that matter. This book will take you to a special place, one sacred and profane, a place where we finally get to face ourselves because we are alone with life itself. And when that happens, the desert offers a state of grace.
—Charles Bowden
[Berman and Broyles] delineate the primal beauty of the Gran Desierto's landscape.
—Tucson Weekly
A vivid and personal introduction to a thorny but ultimately enchanting place that manages to endear itself over time.
—Pluma Fronteriza
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places. But it is also known as El Gran Desierto—a place where stately saguaros stand near aromatic elephant trees, where sand dunes caress the edges of jagged granite mountains, where one can watch
bighorn sheep in the morning and whales in the afternoon.
Over the years, desert rat Bill Broyles has ventured repeatedly into this sunshot landscape, slogged across its salt flats and
sand dunes, and defied its deadly heat. This book chronicles his years of exploration, a vivid and personal introduction to a thorny but ultimately enchanting place that manages to endear itself over
time, if it doesn't kill you first. Michael Berman's stark black-and-white photographs capture the desolate beauty of the desert while conveying a sense of Broyles' adventures. Gleaned from more
than 4,000 images shot with a large-format camera, these exquisite photographs translate the desert's formidable monotone into finely tuned studies of light and represent some of the best photos ever
taken of this mysterious region.
El Gran Desierto is a grand desert indeed, with beauty, spirit, and mystery rivaling any place on Earth, and anyone captivated by the earlier
explorations of Lumholtz, Ives, or Hornaday—or by Edward Abbey's love of desert places—will revel in these modern-day adventures. Sunshot defies the stereotype of a punishing wilderness to
show how even the most perilous desert can be alluring if approached with knowledge and respect.
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