Raven's Exile: A Season on the Green River by Ellen Meloy

Raven's Exile: A Season on the Green River Reviews

• 
  Janie

  I read this book in SLC before I moved to southern Utah. I wanted to educate myself about the part of the country I'd dropped myself into -- so radically different from the east coast. It was the perfect book to do just that. What at first seemed like a most inhospitable landscape, the high southwest desert, I learned to see as a fossilized history of cultures and climate, where only the most tenacious plant and animal life survived. (Anne Zwinger was another wonderful writer of this region). I was thrilled to learn that Ellen lived in the town I eventually moved to. Her contributions to the genre of environmental literature are invaluable. Her passing was a real loss.
• 
  Kirk Astroth

  Another great book by Ellen Meloy. This one is mostly about the Green River as it carves through Desolation Canyon. Throughout the book her humor and lyrical writing shine through once again. Her section on Mormon missionaries who visit her house trying to convert her is classic. "Jehovah's Witnesses, the First Assembly of Aluminum Siding Vendors, and the Sisters of Avon, and other denominations catch the scent of newcomers. Somehow the Mormon missionaries easily detect fresh Gentiles, or non-Mormons." The chapter called "Postcards" is superb. And she and her husband, a BLM employee who runs the river, visit Las Vegas to see where all that water is going--with similar cynicism, humor and wry observations. Her chapter about Ken Sleight, model for Seldom Seen Smith in Edward Abbey's book is really heart warming and touching. The overriding question she ponders throughout is why there are no ravens in Desolation Canyon. In the end, they show up--just as she and her husband are departing for Montana.
• 
  Antonia

  I finish this book only wanting more and filled with a sadness that Ellen Meloy is no longer with us. Such a voice! And as one who has been down the Green through Desolation; she took me back with every sense; the best thing sans raft. I could remember it all. If there are ravens there now, then she is certainly with them; 'quorking' in her poetic, humorous and passionate way! This book definitely needs to be read before a float trip through Desolation. You will immediately realize that there is nothing Desolate about that canyon; one only needs to slow down, float carefully and slowly and open ones' senses to all of its history, majesty and hardship.
• 
  Darby

  I really enjoyed this book, I found it at the library when I was looking for something else and I was so happy to find it again. I had thought it was by Terry Tempest Williams so I haven't been able to find it... It is the story of Ellen Meloy on the river for the whole summer. I read it when I was close to graduating from college and it comforted me that just because you are an adult doesn't mean you have to be boring. I love her descriptions of her experiences, and the natural history of the area.
• 
  Erin

  Great for river folks, especially women and those running Desolation Canyon on the Green, or any of the rivers nearby. Gives history, rapid info, flora, fauna, and general thoughts on the impact of dams on rivers. Currently borrowing from the library, but would buy if was about to run that section myself.
• 
  Patricia

  In the last chapter, Meloy describes herself taking a farewell float, gazing up at the river and two damselflies on her toes. Finishing her book feels like that, taking a long regretful look back at a place I don't want to leave. Meloy recreates her loved landscape with poetically precise language and deep erudition.
• 
  Candice

  This book is amazing and beautiful.
• 
  Mathew Gross

  The lovely debut book from a funny and brilliant natural historian who left us too soon.
• 
  Blair

  Reading Meloy is like sitting down with your smartest, funniest friend and chatting the night away over good wine and snacks. She writes with a sensitivity to the environment and the people who are “of it” like few other writers. Her impatience with the nonsensical aspects of the majority of humans, which is killing all things, is uncomfortable at times, but incredibly necessary. I laughed, I rejoiced, I shuddered and I contemplated the demise of earth as we know it. This book has it all and I highly recommend for everyone who has a love of Place and a fear for what is happening to it.
• 
  Sarah Rogers

  The book was a bit too all-over-the-place for me, and couldn’t hold my attention for very long before it felt like a slog. Some essays were beautiful and poetic, some were difficult to get through. The elements of humor made me laugh out loud a few times. I had read Terry Tempest Williams’ “Red: Passion & Patience in the Desert” a while ago, and I think I’d have given this one a better review if I hadn’t been comparing it to “Red,” one of my all-time favorites.
• 
  Maria

  Sometimes when she would describe herself, her feelings about nature and the world, I almost thought she was describing me.
  
  The other thing that kept coming to mind was that James Wright poem, “Lying in a Hammock at William Duffy’s Farm in Pine Island, Minnesota.” Look it up and you’ll see what I mean.
• 
  Lea

  I heard it said she is like a female Ed Abbey and I can see it, feel it. She made me want to pack my car and head to the Green River, where part of my soul still is. It was published in 1994 and still rings true today as if it were just written.
• 
  Kori

  Beautifully written, an enchanting description of a magical place teetering on the edge due to the interference of modern men. Having just returned from a trip there, I am quite relieved to say that it still survives, 30 years after the book was written.
• 
  Patrick Dean

  Brilliant.
• 
  Jennifer

  Beautiful. As wild places vanish, Meloy’s books become more of a treasure. Loved this book.
• 
  Regine

  Passionate immersion that can rise to the ecstatic. Intensely detailed, peppered with the acerbic. I could almost taste the river.
• 
  Kyri Freeman

  A meditation on the Green River, water in the West, and wilderness.
  
  I first read Meloy's EATING STONE, a book about desert bighorns. In comparison to that book, where the specificity of the theme reined in the author's imagination somewhat, RAVEN'S EXILE ranges widely. I think it should be read as a meditation/rant rather than as a factual account or even a memoir. At times the language is poetic; at other times I found it imprecise and over-the-top. Sometimes Meloy's outrage at American culture's lack of concern for wilderness, the hubris of building huge cities in the middle of the desert, and the arrogance of wanting to replace native fish with others that give better "sport" is acutely expressed and trenchant; sometimes the text degenerates into idiosyncracy and misanthropy.
  
  Recommended, but I tend to think Craig Childs' book on water in the desert addresses the topic better.
• 
  Crissie

  HC 1994
• 
  Chila Woychik

  This is a fantastic book especially for the nature writer, but generally for anyone interested in the environment, ecology, wilderness, etc. Reading through it a second time.
• 
  Amy

  A natural history of the Green River through Desolation Canyon, written in a quirky and charming style.