Released in 1998, this book marks a departure from earlier ones.
Its core is a facsimile of "The History of Roxaboxan,"
written in pencil in 1916 by Marian
Doan - who once she was grown up was my mother.
To give this jewel the setting it deserves,
I've drawn upon a host of written materials -
including the memoirs of my grandmother, an aunt, and my father,
as well as materials from microfilms of early issues
of the Yuma newspapers and photos from the collections of the Yuma
Historical Society.
Images of old letters, report cards, and clippings give
a range of graphics that takes us
from the beginning of the century to the present.
The poignant collage that results
presents the portrait of a young author growing up in early Arizona,
and traces the impact over time of her self-published book.
You'll learn not only about Marian and her world, but also about the inside details of how my own book Roxaboxen was created, you'll learn how Marian's book and my own were woven together to produce a marvelous play, and you'll learn how the city of Yuma and Roxaboxen fans everywhere organized a movement to save the hill itself so that children could build towns there forever. I love the idea of the book-within-a-book; there's a special pocket inside for the facsimile. The first printing, a hardcover, was produced with a cover that didn't quite work, and rushed to print without careful proofreading so that there were lots of uncorrected errors. Still, it was printed on a wonderful quality of paper so that the photos in it almost leaped off the page, and the little extra stories tucked in on the side (like footnotes, only less formal) were wonderfully easy to read. The next printing was a paperback, with all the errors corrected. I was disappointed, though, that the paper wasn't of the same quality. It took the ink differently, and neither text nor photos have the same wonderful clarity. I had hoped that in the future there might be a third printing that would get it all right, but that won't happen. Still, if you'd like a copy, remainders or used copies may appear on websites like Alibris. If they do, purchasing soon may make sense. Used copies of the hardcover started at $70 last time I checked!
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Here, as a bonus, is a recently discovered photo,
one that I didn't even know existed at
the time we were putting the book together.
It shows Marian at the time when she was
mayor of Roxaboxen and writing her 5-chapter "History of Roxaboxen."
I think it's my favorite picture of my mother.
Only of course she wasn't my mother yet; she was simply Marian.