Enter the Kingdom in the Country. Please...

    Below are the annotated endpapers for my book of reportage about the American West, looking like a map left somewhere by Lewis and Clark. My route is traced in black - from Roswell, N.M. to the deserts of California. It's The Kingdom in the Country and just out in ebook.
    The site also has reviews and comments, including those of Wallace Stegner, my teacher when I was at Stanford, and others.      Go to:   http://www.fearlessbooks.com/Conaway.htm
     To research and write Kingdom I ditched my job as a feature writer at the Washington Post (the retirement of Ben Bradlee as editor was already changing that newspaper). I bought a van, put a bed in it, collected maps, camping equipment, a small research library before the days of ebooks and a typewriter, and took off for the territories.

      Below, taped inside the first copy, was a letter from the publisher:

      One of many characters in the book is Edward Abbey, author of Desert Solitaire that first got me interested in the West. Next I'll run the chapter in Kingdom about Abbey, and the note he sent me after the book was published.