Tom Zoellner walked across the length of Arizona to come to terms with his home state. But the trip revealed more mountains behind the mountains.

Rim to River is the story of this extraordinary journey through redrock country, down canyons, up mesas, and across desert plains to the obscure valley in Mexico that gave the state its enigmatic name. The trek is interspersed with incisive essays that pick apart the distinctive cultural landscape of Arizona: the wine-colored pinnacles and complex spirituality of Navajoland, the mind-numbing stucco suburbs, desperate border crossings, legislative skullduggery, extreme politics, billion-dollar copper ventures, dehydrating rivers, retirement kingdoms, old-time foodways, ghosts of old wars, honky-tonk dreamers, murder mysteries, and magical Grand Canyon reveries.

“Tom Zoellner has the legs of Muir, the heart of Steinbeck, the eyes of Didion, the pen of Caro, and the scope of Gibbons as he takes readers beyond the stereotypes of a state too often cast as just one big, bad waste of desert. Masterful must-read.”—Gustavo Arellano, author of Orange County: A Personal History and Taco USA: How Mexican Food Conquered America