by Betsy James
First published 2023
Betsy James settles into a rented room in an old adobe house at the heart of a New Mexican village in the early 1990s. The writer and artist brings years of experience working with similar cultures across Mexico, Albuquerque, and Zuni Pueblo to her careful observation of Placitas. She hikes the backcountry surrounding her temporary home and watches the rhythms of village life unfold around her. James applies what she calls her "best mortal attention" to capturing the details of this place and its people. Her nearly four-year residence becomes an exercise in deep listening and precise documentation. The tension lies in her role as both participant and observer, someone who must earn her place in a community while maintaining the distance necessary to record what she witnesses. James transforms her daily experiences and encounters into a meditation on place, belonging, and the patient work of truly seeing where you are.
Genres: art, literary-fiction, american, biography-memoir, 21st-century, cultural
Vibes: emotional, intimate, thought-provoking
Tropes: participant-observer, sense-of-place
Setting: Albuquerque, Mexico, New Mexico, Placitas, Zuni Pueblo
Period: 1990s, Early 1990s
204 pages · Paperback · Casa Urraca Press