Lannan Foundation

Charles Bowden, Writer - Marfa, Spring 2001

Charles Bowden is the author of eleven books including A Shadow in the City: Confessions of an Undercover Dog; Down By the River: Drugs, Money, Murder and Family; Juárez: The Laboratory of our Future; Blood Orchid: An Unnatural History of America; Desierto: Memories of the Future; Red Line; Blue Desert; and (with Michael Binstein) Trust Me: Charles Keating and the Missing Billions.

He is a contributing editor of Esquire, and also writes for other magazines such as Harper’s and The New York Times Book Review, as well as for newspapers. Winner of the 1996 Lannan Literary Award for Nonfiction, he lives in Tucson, Arizona.

“I wrote [A Shadow in the City] in Marfa, Texas, in a house loaned to me by a foundation as part of their writers’ program.  This is the second book I have written in that house thanks to the kindness of the outfit.  So I would like to thank the folks at the Lannan Foundation.  And issue an apology to the town of Marfa for once again being a hermit in their midst and remaining largely ignorant of their fine community.  It seems when one is blessed with the loan of a Lannan house, one enters and hardly ever leaves the walls again. I did see things out my window that make me wish this were not my fate.  The Davis Mountains and Big Bend region of Texas are good earth.  Well, better than good.”