RE: [Texascavers] Nevada Barr's "Blind Descent"

[caverchad]

Back when I was the newsletter editor of the Maverick Grotto, someone gave
me a copy of Track of the Cat and I not only read it, but wrote a book
review on it.  At the time, I was an avid Three Mile Hill guads caver, so
I was very familiar with the area.  Nevada Barr's writing style includes a
ton of non-fiction description in her fiction books.  Two things I
remember specifically: First, when Anna went to Carlsbad to get a
margarita, she went to Lucy's, a popular caver diner spot at the time.  I
have had many post-caving-trip diners at Lucy's.  The other was when Anna
drove from the GMNP headquarters to the Dog Canyon campground, which is
only accessible via the same road we use to get to Three Mile Hill,
Nevada's description of the drive was uncanny because I had driven it so
much myself.  As I read I thought to myself "yes, I've seen that sign", "I
remember that fence", "I've seen that turnoff," etc.  She has an ability
to seamlessly transition from fact to fiction, and unless you were very
familiar with the area, you would never know.  This is part of what makes
her books great.  The descriptions of the national parks in her fictional
books are only partly fiction.  There is a huge bases in fact, and Nevada
spends a lot of time in an area before she writes about it (what a
sacrifice that must be -- forcing yourself to spend weeks in a national
park for background material -- where do I sign up?)

So, when Blind Descent came out, I was at Boarders on the release date,
had the book read by the weekend, and a review in the following months
Maverick Bull.

She does much of the same thing in Blind Descent.  Her descriptions of the
area are uncanny because, well, she stayed there for some period of time
preparing background material.  But the non-fiction aspect did not stop
with descriptions of the landscape.  Virtually every major character in
the book was based on real cavers she had met while she was there.  For
example, a caving couple, "Timmy" and "Lisa", Timmy was a brilliant rocket
scientist, and Lisa, in her 40's was from New Zealand, had her hair in two
braids down to the back of her knees, and loved cave photography.  OK,
swap out "physicist" for "rocket scientist" and "British" for "New
Zealand" and what have you got? Hmmmm.

The funny thing was that I met Peter and Ann Bosted that summer at the '99
Idaho convention and I talked to Ann about her "character" in the book. 
She was just bubbly about it and laughed her head off.  She said she was
surprised and honored.

Having never been in Lech, I only know from what I was told that Nevada
was taken into Lech up to some point (I can't remember, possibly Boulder
Falls?), but that was enough for her descriptions of Lech to be "just real
enough" to make the book come alive.  Nevada's description of Anna's trip
into Lech was indeed, very real . . . up to a point, and only someone who
has actually been in Lech would know where that point occurred.

Maybe Butch or I can find those old book reviews in the Maverick Bull
archives.  Dang, I wonder what I wrote like 10 years ago.  Once I re-read
them, I may want them suppressed.

CF
FORMER Editor, Maverick Bull

Roger and Louise, Louise’s enlightenment on Nevada Barr’s prowess as a mystery writer makes this non-fiction only reader want to at least read “Blind Descent”. I also found Roger’s recounting of his association with her at book signings and the astronaut tie in to be most informative. Roger and Louise both seem to have had many interesting and even historical experiences in their lives or that of their family. I for one enjoy these on and off topic interesting posts. Thanks. Fritz   From: CaverArch [mailto:cavera...@aol.com] Sent: Thursday, August 28, 2008 8:41 AM To: Patrick Shaw; Louise Power; Texas Cavers Subject: Re: [Texascavers] Nevada Barr's "Blind Descent"   Nevada Barr is not just an excellent writer.  She is a wonderful speaker, as well, and it will be well worth the time of any fan to attend an event at which she speaks.  I had the second such opportunity at the signing for her latest book, Winter Study, at "Murder by the Book," the Houston independent mystery bookstore.  (The first was a lunch event hosted by the store after the publication of Blind Descent.)  There was a caving connection in the talk that I had to write up for the Greater Houston Grotto mailing list that I will share with the Texas list now that her name has come up:   "I attended the Nevada Barr signing for her new Anna Pigeon mystery at Murder by the Book last night, and it was delightful.  Ms. Barr was an actress before becoming a National Park Service law enforcement ranger like Anna, and this experience helps her to be a very funny, talented, and completely at ease speaker, as well as a writer.  But apart from that, I must report on the cave-associated aspect of her visit to Houston!  Some years ago she met and befriended an astronaut named Chapman (I think) and his wife when Barr and Chapman both spoke at an educational function in Georgia.  They have visited periodically and remained in contact via phone and e-mail, and consider themselves close friends.  He and his wife had spent time with Nevada on this visit, but came to the book talk for a special reason.  Mr. Chapman (also a talented speaker) was a member of a late 1990s astronaut class that was nicknamed the "penguins" because they were "all dressed up, with no place to go, and they would never fly."  Well, happily, he was finally able to fly for about 150 days on the International Space Station recently.    He contacted Nevada before lift-off to say that he wanted to indulge in an astronaut perk and take something into space for her.  It would have to be something small, light, and very personal to her.  She selected something appropriate and Mr. Chapman chose the book signing to publicly present this personal treasure to her.  This item of great meaning, but light weight, was a black bat finger puppet from Carlsbad Caverns National Park that she had been given while there to research Blind Descent, her Lechugilla-centered Anna Pigeon novel.  The astronaut's seven-year-old daughter had named the bat "Flaps," so he was accompanied by an official NASA certificate authenticating Flaps' record-breaking bat flight.  (Ms. Barr, at my request, inscribed her new book as "From Nevada Barr and Flaps," and then added a cute bat sketch of her own creation.  She had included my NSS number in the inscription for Blind Descent at the earlier event.)   Ms. Barr answered questions after her brief, but hilarious lecture.  A question about Blind Descent provoked her most detailed answer, and gave insight into the average reader's reaction to her vivid descriptions of caving.  The questioner praised her ability to describe how one moves through a cave, and voiced the chills (outweighing the thrills) that most non-cavers probably felt on reading these sections.  Nevada is a self-described claustrophobic, so the real-life caving experiences (culminating in a trip in Lech) that constituted her typical hands-on research for this book were very difficult for her.  She said that she came to enjoy the sensations of physical movement through caves, and of course appreciated the beauty of cave formations, but that her claustrophobia always kept her ill at ease.  Ranger Pigeon felt this same distress, which introduced another level of tension into the novel.  Writing about the subterranean world so effectively rekindled this discomfort in Ms. Barr that she had to abandon her original intention to have the entire novel take place underground: she simply found the prospect too nerve-wracking.  While we cavers crave the very environment she finds so unnerving, I certainly admire Ms. Barr's courage in subjecting herself to such disconcerting experiences, both in real life and inside her own mind.  She, like Anna, is one tough lady in a charming package. "   Roger Moore, Greater Houston Grotto   In a message dated 08/27/08 19:33:28 Central Daylight Time, pat_s...@telus.net writes: Yes indeed - a fine tale, and I was amazed that in the whole book I don't think the words "spelunker" or "spelunking" appear once! Louise Power wrote: I don't know how many of you are mystery fiction fans, but Nevada Barr is one of the best and probably the only one in her specific genre--mysteries taking place in National Parks. In 1993, she published Track of the Cat, the first of fourteen novels with Anna Pigeon, a park ranger, as her protagonist. This novel took place in Guadalupe Mountains National Park, her second posting with the Park Service.   In 1998, she published Blind Descent, her sixth in the series, which took place in a highly disguised Lechuguilla Cave, Carlsbad Caverns NP: Blind Descent, the sixth in the Anna Pigeon series, is set in Carlsbad Caverns National Park. Lechuguilla, the cave the action takes place in has been largely fictionalized both for plot and because, to preserve it, the NPS has closed the cave to visitors. Blind Descent was nominated for an Anthony Award.   Dale Pate was her escort through the Park. The book, a tense murder mystery, was excellent and provided me with more than a couple of empathetic moments (flashes of claustrophobia). All of her books are good. As another federal employee and former Carlsbad Caverns employee, I can tell by what she says and how she says it that she is NPS. If you like mysteries, you'll like this series--even though they don't take place in caves. Check out AOL Video to see what's making news today!

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