Annette McGivney reading & signing 'Pure Land' - July 19th

 Time Tested Books

is pleased to present

Annette McGivney

Reading & Signing

Pure Land: A True Story of Three Lives, 

Three Cultures, and the Search for Heaven on Earth
 Thursday, July 19th, 7:00pm  

Tomomi Hanamure, a Japanese citizen who loved exploring the rugged wilderness of the American West, was killed on her birthday May 8, 2006. She was stabbed 29 times as she hiked to Havasu Falls on the Havasupai Indian Reservation at the bottom of Grand Canyon. Her killer was a distressed 18-year old Havasupai youth named Randy Redtail Wescogame who had a history of robbing tourists and was addicted to meth. It was the most brutal murder ever recorded in Grand Canyon's history. 

As the indigenous people of the Grand Canyon, the Havasupai once called the entire natural wonder their home before being forced onto a 500-acre reservation. Annette McGivney covered the murder and the plight of the tribe for Backpacker magazine where she is Southwest Editor. After the award-winning article was published in June 2007, McGivney could not let go of the story. A woman who also enjoys wilderness hiking, McGivney felt a bond with Hanamure and embarked on a years-long pursuit to learn more about her. McGivney traveled to Japan and across the American West, following the trail through Native American lands and national parks that Hanamure left in her journals. Yet, McGivney also had a connection to Wescogame, Hanamure's killer, and her reporting unexpectedly triggered long buried memories about violent abuse McGivney experienced as a child.

Pure Land is a story of this inner and outer journey, how two women in search of their true nature found transcendence in the West's most spectacular landscapes. It is also a tale of how child abuse leads to violence and destroys lives. And it is, ultimately, a story of healing. While chronicling Hanamure's life landed McGivney in the crime scene of her own childhood, it was her connection to Hanamure—a woman she did not know until after Hanamure died —that helped McGivney find a way out of her own horror.

Part true crime and part memoir, Pure Land is a unique narrative non-fiction book that has received high praise since it was released in October 2017 by Aquarius Press. Pure Land was the first pick for Outside magazine's new online book club and it received the "Excellence in Storytelling" Award from the Coconino Center for the Arts.

                                                      

                                                      About the Author

Annette McGivney is the longtime Southwest Editor for Backpacker magazine and a Journalism professor at Northern Arizona University. In addition to Backpacker, she writes frequently for Outside, Arizona Highways, Sunset and other outdoor and environmental publications. She is the author of five books and lives in Flagstaff, Arizona. For more, go to: www.annettemcgivney.com.

This event is FREE and everyone is invited.