The Milagro Beanfield War by John Nichols

Nearing 67, and with a weakened heart, Nichols still keeps his maverick edge. This fall, Nichols will publish his 19th book, The Empanada Brotherhood, which he describes as “a strange little book about a bunch of yahoos in New York City.” Aside from his fiction and nonfiction writing, Nichols is noted for his activism (last year, a Denver newspaper columnist compared his rhetoric to Lenin’s), his nostalgic vision of New Mexican culture and his Rabelaisian charm. Maybe he also likes them because, like him, they are gleeful thorns in the side of a more refined society. He passes a dumpster and shouts out the window: “Caw! Caw!” He loves ravens, magpies and jays for their intelligence, adaptability, and monkey-like behavior.

Nichols, best known for his 1974 novel The Milagro Beanfield War, slips large tortoise-shell glasses over blue eyes and motors down the alley. The New Mexican sun has roasted the car’s interior, where a dusty dashboard shelves a stack of mail: The New Yorker, information on a pension plan, an envelope scrawled with “To John Nichols (the writer) c/o Taos Post Office.” He winces as he drops into the driver’s seat, the cortisone shot he just received in his hip still niggling. The ravens eye him curiously and chatter as he ambles over to a boxy little 1993 Dodge Shadow. CaDressed in layers of button-down shirts, he runs long fingers through gray-streaked hair and pats it down with his palm. He wears a helmet to protect himself from objects dropped from the bridge. It’s over, Rover.”Īdvice: “Part of surviving is not to stress yourself out and make your life miserable.”įavorite fishing spot: Far below the Rio Grande Gorge bridge.

Thoughts on Death and THE Afterlife “You just die. VOCATION: Author of 19 books offiction and nonfiction, including The Milagro Beanfield War, The Sterile Cuckoo, Conjugal Bliss, The Voice of the Butterfly and If Mountains Die.

The Milagro Beanfield War by John Nichols