Journalist Kyle Paoletta has accepted an offer from David Treuer at Pantheon to publish American Oasis: How the Cities of the Southwest Forecast Our Sweltering, Multicultural Future, a set of interwoven narratives exploring the region’s Indigenous and colonial history as well as its unique modern culture. In the book, Paoletta — a New Mexico native and contributor to Harper's, The Believer, and The Nation, among others — will examine the stories of these cities through the lives of such noted local characters as the modernist architect Judith Chafee in Tucson, the Chicano poet Jimmy Santiago Baca in Albuquerque, and the washed up celebrity detective Jay J. Armes in El Paso, as he makes the case that the climatic and demographic shifts taking place in the Southwest foreshadow what will soon face the nation as a whole.
Update, April 21, 2022: Paoletta’s related longform article “We Woke Up and We Lost Half Our Water” has been published by New York Magazine.
