PUBLISHED/University Press of Kansas adventure/nature/history
Elevations: A Personal Exploration of the Arkansas River
Max McCoy
The upper Arkansas River courses through the heart of America from its headwaters near the Continental Divide above Leadville, Colorado, to Arkansas City, just above the Kansas-Oklahoma border. Max McCoy embarked on a trip of 742 miles in search of the river's unique story. Part adventure and part reflection, steeped in the natural and cultural history of the Arkansas Valley, Elevations is McCoy’s account of that journey.
Going by kayak when he can—by Jeep, on foot, or by other means when he has to—McCoy takes us with him, navigating the Arkansas River as it reveals its nature and tests his own. Along the way, and when he isn’t battling the current for his overturned kayak; braving a frigid Christmas Eve along the river; or joining the search for a drowning victim, he steps out to explore the world beyond the river’s banks. Here for instance is Camp Amache, where Japanese Americans were imprisoned during World War II. Here is Ludlow, where thirteen women and children died in a standoff between striking coal miners and the militia in 1914. Farther along we find Sand Creek, site of a massacre by US soldiers in 1864, and, uncomfortably close, Garden City, where white supremacists were charged with planning a terror attack on Somali refugees in 2016.
Whether traveling back in time, pausing in the present, or looking forward, Elevations captures the Arkansas River in its thrilling moments and placid stretches, in its natural splendor and degradation at human hands. The book shows us the river as a flowing repository of human history and, in the telling of this gifted writer, as a life-changing experience.
Going by kayak when he can—by Jeep, on foot, or by other means when he has to—McCoy takes us with him, navigating the Arkansas River as it reveals its nature and tests his own. Along the way, and when he isn’t battling the current for his overturned kayak; braving a frigid Christmas Eve along the river; or joining the search for a drowning victim, he steps out to explore the world beyond the river’s banks. Here for instance is Camp Amache, where Japanese Americans were imprisoned during World War II. Here is Ludlow, where thirteen women and children died in a standoff between striking coal miners and the militia in 1914. Farther along we find Sand Creek, site of a massacre by US soldiers in 1864, and, uncomfortably close, Garden City, where white supremacists were charged with planning a terror attack on Somali refugees in 2016.
Whether traveling back in time, pausing in the present, or looking forward, Elevations captures the Arkansas River in its thrilling moments and placid stretches, in its natural splendor and degradation at human hands. The book shows us the river as a flowing repository of human history and, in the telling of this gifted writer, as a life-changing experience.
ABOUT THE AUTHOR
Max McCoy is an award-winning novelist and journalist known for his dark and offbeat westerns (which have been described as "western noir") and his original Indiana Jones adventures for Bantam and licensed by Lucasfilm. He won the Spur Award for best novel in 2008 from the Western Writers of America for Hellfire Canyon. In 2011, the third book in the Hellfire trilogy, Damnation Road, also won a Spur. His fiction debut, The Sixth Rider, about the 1892 raid on Coffeyville's banks by the Dalton Gang, was published by Doubleday and won the Medicine Pipe Award for Best First Novel from Western Writers.
USA Today has described his writing as "powerful." In addition to westerns and historical fiction, McCoy also writes contemporary adventures. Publishers Weekly called his novel, "The Moon Pool," an "intelligent thriller... tightly drawn characters, a vile villain and a satisfying, thought-provoking conclusion make this a compelling read."
McCoy grew up in Baxter Springs and most of his books are set in Kansas or Missouri. He began his career in journalism at the Pittsburg Morning Sun and writing for pulp magazines such as "True Detective" and "Front-Page Detective." As investigative writer for The Joplin Globe, he won first-place awards in investigative journalism for his stories on serial killers and hate groups.
McCoy is an associate professor at Emporia State University at Emporia, Kansas, and director of the Tallgrass Writing Workshop. Visit his website at http://www.maxmccoy.com/.
Max McCoy is an award-winning novelist and journalist known for his dark and offbeat westerns (which have been described as "western noir") and his original Indiana Jones adventures for Bantam and licensed by Lucasfilm. He won the Spur Award for best novel in 2008 from the Western Writers of America for Hellfire Canyon. In 2011, the third book in the Hellfire trilogy, Damnation Road, also won a Spur. His fiction debut, The Sixth Rider, about the 1892 raid on Coffeyville's banks by the Dalton Gang, was published by Doubleday and won the Medicine Pipe Award for Best First Novel from Western Writers.
USA Today has described his writing as "powerful." In addition to westerns and historical fiction, McCoy also writes contemporary adventures. Publishers Weekly called his novel, "The Moon Pool," an "intelligent thriller... tightly drawn characters, a vile villain and a satisfying, thought-provoking conclusion make this a compelling read."
McCoy grew up in Baxter Springs and most of his books are set in Kansas or Missouri. He began his career in journalism at the Pittsburg Morning Sun and writing for pulp magazines such as "True Detective" and "Front-Page Detective." As investigative writer for The Joplin Globe, he won first-place awards in investigative journalism for his stories on serial killers and hate groups.
McCoy is an associate professor at Emporia State University at Emporia, Kansas, and director of the Tallgrass Writing Workshop. Visit his website at http://www.maxmccoy.com/.