From the flooding of southern New Mexico's Mimbres River in the summer, to the year-round search for community in rural America, Sharman Apt Russell recounts her experiences in creating a life for herself in the remote southwestern desert. She, along with her husband, chose to leave a faster lane in order to find a way of life not possible in a larger urban area: building their own adobe home, giving birth to their first child at home, and developing self-reliance and a deepening commitment to each other. Her reverence for the land, its history, and native inhabitants always informs her writing, and her intelligence and strong narrative voice ring clearly throughout this remarkable work. Like the best personal memoirs, the book is also about the events, people, myths, and emotions that define the days and seasons.Songs of the Fluteplayer, called an "enchanting book" by theAtlanta Journal-Constitution, marks an exciting literary debut.