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List Price: $12.00 | | Publisher: Pica Books
Salesrank: 2793559
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| Our Price: $7.89 |
| Used Price: $0.16 |
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| Media: Paperback |
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Editorial Review:
Alone and seeking answers, McGrath found herself on a journey through the southwestern desert states in search of an American Dream of the spirit. From encounters with channelers, UFOlogists, and conspiracy theorists to investigations of alien abductees, tree huggers, angels, and immortals, McGrath's chronicle represents nothing less that the spiritual anatomy of a culture coming apart at the seams.
Description of Motel Nirvana: Dreaming of the New Age in the American Desert:
A 30-year-old British woman travels around the southwestern United States, the focal point of the New Age movement and a desert landscape where "someone you can rely upon to have an opinion about soap opera or McDonald's turns out to have seen angels in her backyard and the man who sells you a cup of coffee thinks himself a reincarnation of Nefertiti." McGrath struggles to maintain a sense of ironic amusement as she encounters an assortment of eccentric folks, from a pudgy, sexually confused "angel" to a "convergence" of people who have achieved immortality--or claim to, at any rate--by deciding that they don't feel like dying. American readers may find some difficulty warming up to McGrath's British prose style, but the humor and insight in Motel Nirvana are well worth the effort. --Ron Hogan
Motel Nirvana: Dreaming of the New Age in the American Desert Reviews:
An inspiring-enlightening witty journey through the living d 
1999-05-31 - The book seems to capture the wild aspects of the american fronteer through the eyes and imaginatively ingenious mind of melanie. Not only does she seem to find the life on the desert intent with desire and thwartinng with perspiring energy(which for me, I found myself traveling with her and even tasting her rootbeer). Her journey brought me back to my own spiritual journey through the southwest some time ago, which is why for me, I fell in deep amor with this complex and somewhat transparent realm, the realm of the desert that I do so desire with obsession. If anyone is truely in need of a spiritual awakening, the desert of the southwest is where you need to be, but dont forget this book! It's essential.
A British woman's journey through the Southwest 
1998-06-23 - I found McGrath's memoir to be a trenchant and often hilarious memoir not only of her wonderfully scruffy journey through the Southwest, but a gentle, well-written metaphor for her own quest for the chimaera we call inner peace. The first few chapters had me guffawing at the incredibly crazy cast of characters she meets in Sedona, Santa Fe, and other new age hot spots. Believe me, writing this from the Bay Area, she's not so far off. Despite these peoples' desperate and very funny quests for nirvana, McGrath treats them as signs of the fin de siecle, signs of America's greater social malaise viewed through her own kind lens. Her book is one of the 'nicest' I've read in a while (not to mention funniest). If you're looking for fuzzy, new age enlightenment in this book, look elsewhere. If you're looking for sardonic clarity, it's here. Remarkably well-written. Why is it American's don't write this well?
new agers debunked
1998-03-13 - Once Melanie McGrath finishes her lengthy tome (i.e., the first two chapters) on the New Agers, this book takes off. Her insights into things like the Biosphere, Navajo culture, Route 66, and other things "southwestern" are first-rate. The best part is she manages to pull it all together in the second-last chapter (the last one is more like an epilogue on what she learned from her time in the "enlightened desert") by showing how the Indians have such contempt for New Agers who appropriate Indian culture to justify their looniness. One angry Indian sums it up best: "Our political agenda and the New Age agenda have totally different paths. We don't want their help." All in all a worthy look at an area of the States that is quirkily unique.
