In one of those coincidences that only seem to happy in the Southwest, I happened to meet [[Philip Connors]] in a bookstore in El Paso, Texas, as we both know the owner and frequent the store any time we are nearby. The owner shuffled over to me with a stack of Connors' books and encouraged me to buy them all that day - I'm glad I did.

Connors was an editor for the Arts and Leisure section of the Wall Street Journal, which might give some readers pause - but he is the self-proclaimed only socialist ever to work for the Journal. This book is a memoir of the years he tries to process his brother's suicide, blaming himself, as many do, for so long that looking back he was in all the wrong places. Eventually, he becomes a fire lookout in the Gila Wilderness in New Mexico and begins to piece his life back together looking down at the grand high desert. He characterizes himself as someone who never developed the skills to ask the right questions nor to understand the answers he received - but that self-deprecation just highlights the way his mind was working to regain a grip on reality. Because spending time in his mind while reading this book is among the most pleasant and moving experiences I've ever had reading a memoir. He is unabashedly open and keenly observes the world around him. The last time I read a memoir this cutting and worthwhile was Andrew McCarthy's [The Longest Way Home].

Connors is a once-in-a-generation writer who only awakened to the world around him once he hiked into the desert - the solemn place restoring him. His next book [Fire Season] won the National Outdoor Book Award.

Highly Recommended!!!!!
5 bones!!!!! ( )

ALL THE WRONG PLACES is a hero's journey and the story of the emergence of one of the best of the West's new writers.

I had the pleasure of meeting Phil Connors at an Association for the Study of Literature and Environment writer's conference where he was a speaker. Dave Foreman was there too and the three of us had lunch along with my wife and publisher at Torrey House Press, Kirsten Allen. Kirsten ended up sitting with three men who had lost their brothers by their brother's own hand. It was a moving experience for me, one I still feel and am grateful for.

As coincidence would have it, the copy of ALL THE WRONG PLACES Phil generously sent me showed up in my mailbox on the five year anniversary of my brother's death. I started reading it around noon and finished it a minute before midnight. I had in my hand a story I related to on many levels, of course, but also one that told the background story of how a sensitive, hard working, acutely honest and master observer came to be an award winning writer.

Phil was on a path he might not have been cut out for when his world was side swiped by the news of his younger brother's suicide. It was a suicide he feels he might have prevented. We older brothers know this, know we could have done something, know what it would have been, know it even though we are often told there is nothing we could have done. The challenge is to figure how to live with the realization of this existential truth. Phil ended up leaving New York City for a fire tower in the Gila, where his title FIRE SEASON emerged followed by this work. We are all the richer for it.

What is most personal is the most universal. In this exquisitely honest portrayal of a life closely examined and found wanting the rest of us can shed a light on our own dark interior.

Man, Phil, nice work.

-Mark ( )

ALL THE WRONG PLACES is a hero's journey and the story of the emergence of one of the best of the West's new writers.

I had the pleasure of meeting Phil Connors at an Association for the Study of Literature and Environment writer's conference where he was a speaker. Dave Foreman was there too and the three of us had lunch along with my wife and publisher at Torrey House Press, Kirsten Allen. Kirsten ended up sitting with three men who had lost their brothers by their brother's own hand. It was a moving experience for me, one I still feel and am grateful for.

As coincidence would have it, the copy of ALL THE WRONG PLACES Phil generously sent me showed up in my mailbox on the five year anniversary of my brother's death. I started reading it around noon and finished it a minute before midnight. I had in my hand a story I related to on many levels, of course, but also one that told the background story of how a sensitive, hard working, acutely honest and master observer came to be an award winning writer.

Phil was on a path he might not have been cut out for when his world was side swiped by the news of his younger brother's suicide. It was a suicide he feels he might have prevented. We older brothers know this, know we could have done something, know what it would have been, know it even though we are often told there is nothing we could have done. The challenge is to figure how to live with the realization of this existential truth. Phil ended up leaving New York City for a fire tower in the Gila, where his title FIRE SEASON emerged followed by this work. We are all the richer for it.

What is most personal is the most universal. In this exquisitely honest portrayal of a life closely examined and found wanting the rest of us can shed a light on our own dark interior.

Man, Phil, nice work.

-Mark ( )

Beautifully written memoir. ( )