By Richard Menzies

The editors have asked me to expand upon my assertion that Winnemucca is the Florence of Northern Nevada—a daunting assignment in view of the fact I have recently returned from Firenza, where I stayed for a time at the Hotel La Gioconda, famous because it was briefly the hideout for an art thief who 1911 made off with the Leonardo da Vinci masterpiece popularly known as the Mona Lisa.

As someone who also takes pictures, I slept fitfully.  Not because I feared the Arma dei Carabiniaeri were closing in, but because the mattress was quite lumpy.  The furnishings and bathroom fixtures were old, perhaps even older than those at my cabinette at the Scott Shady Court in Winnemucca, where I always choose to stay—not because it ‘s deluxe but because it just oozes character.  Next door is unit 61 that the ageless desk clerk Louise routinely assigns to the acclaimed San Francisco photographer Mark Citret.  Like me, Citret is enamored with the Shady Court.  An ethereal picture he shot inside the court’s enclosed swimming pool is featured in his book Along The Way.  More recently, Mark has trained his camera on the table flatware at Winnemucca’s excellent breakfast eatery The Griddle.

I know Mark because we’ve both been featured speakers at Winnemucca’s annual photography symposium, Shooting The West.  It is through STW that I’ve rubbed shoulders with a number of famous photographers and come to admire a community that otherwise I might have just driven through, or around, since Winnemucca, like most towns along the old Emigrant Trail, has been bypassed by the Interstate.  Bear in mind that my impressions are those of a seasonal visitor and not those of someone who lives and works there.  And, speaking as a tourist, my impression of Winnemucca is indeed similar to my impression of Florence; i.e., “Wow, how different everything around here is!” Read the rest of this entry »

The fine people over at Moonshine Ink, Tahoe and Truckee’s favorite source for news, published a pretty incredible review essay on our book, The Short, Short Hitchhiker earlier this month.  Unlike a lot of reviews, this one really digs into the essence of Stanley’s book.  David Bunker, the columnist who reviewed it, compares it to the latest Steve Jobs biography, the name of which I can’t recall, contrasting Stanley’s humanity with that of Mr. Jobs.

We here at Virginia Avenue Press and the Nevada Review have believed in this book since we first read the manuscript last year.  It is just so gripping, so stunningly authentic, and so powerful that we knew we would just have to publish it.  Even so, it is always nice to know that others like Mr. Bunker agree with our initial assessment.  There are more reviews on the way we are told, and we will be sure to post them here when we get them.

Take a look at Laura Pieroni’s review here.  There is the blurb from the Tonopah Review, and Richard Menzies’ talk about the book and the man on KNPR, too.  And of course, check out what Richard himself saysabout the book.

In the meantime, Bunker’s piece is quite the review and I highly encourage everyone to read it.  In the meantime, take a moment to read this brief excerpt below:

What I liked about the “Short, Short Hitchhiker” was the honesty and pure humanity that filled the book. Without any business ambition, image to uphold, or salesmanship, Gurcze put pen to paper to tell simple stories that intersected the lives of the wealthy and the vagrant in our society.

In a country more and more fractured along the lines of wealth and money, where battle lines are being drawn between the 99 percent and the 1 percent, and where technological advancement may one day produce an article-writing computer that spits out superb True Grit columns in half the time and with none of the mental anguish, human stories about who we are (not what we own, what we make, or what we sell) are as relevant as ever.

Laura Pieroni, who used to work for the Elko Free Press and who now writes and reviews books on her personal site (among other places like the great Line Zero), has a new review of The Short, Short Hitchhiker up on her site, Laura Reviews Books.   Please go to her site and read the whole thing, it truly captures the essence of Stanley’s book.  Here is a quick taste:

The Short, Short Hitchhiker is an unbelievably funny and interesting autobiography by a man, now sadly deceased, named Stanley Gurcze. At an all too brief 136 pages Stanley weaves his many stories of hitchhiking across the United States (mostly through Nevada, Arizona, and Texas) and how he came to be a  homeless roamer.

…

This is a little gem of a book written by someone who simply wanted to tell stories, his stories. It’s rare to find a manuscript written purely for the sake of storytelling, without the driving desire to be rich or famous or respected through being a published author. I wish more books had the raw honesty of this memoir, and I highly suggest you all give it a read.

While you are at it, check out the blurb from the Tonopah Review, listen to editor Richard Menzies talk about the book and the man on KNPR, and of course, check out what Richard himself says about the book.

More important, though, is the book release part for this book, Thursday, November 17th, 2011, at Sundance Books and Music.  Details here.

Thank you again to Laura for this wonderful review.  She does great work.

Menzies, Richard. Passing Through: An Existential Journey Across America’s Outback. Las Vegas: Stephens Press, 2005.  124 pages, $21.95 (hardcover)—The “classics” of Nevada literature—Laxalt’s Sweet Promised Land, van Tilburg Clark’s City of Trembling Leaves, Twain’s Roughing It—appropriate, and indeed have helped to create, the way we think about the Great Basin and its people.  Part of these mythological narratives includes Nevada as the land of the “the rugged individual,” “the freedom lover,” “the loner.”  Less politely, but perhaps more accurately: it is a haven for oddballs.  Richard Menzies’ Passing Through is a series of literary and photographic profiles of some of Nevada’s more unique and compelling individuals who have made this region their home.

Passing Through was the basis for the KNPB produced video, Living in the Big Empty, which is available for viewing on the station’s website and which contains additional shorts on Menzies’ subjects: Floyd Eaton, who lived for years in the West Wendover landfill; Stan Gurcze, the legless hitchhiker who spent years travelling the by-ways of Nevada on crutches; and Frank van Zant, better known as Chief Rolling Thunder Mountain, architect and chief builder of Thunder Mountain near Imaly. While I cannot recount all of the characters featured in Passing Through, perhaps it is a useful approach to the book to focus on individuals who, for reasons still not quite clear to me, I found myself identifying with: Stan Gurcze and Tom Clay. Read the rest of this entry »

Between the blog comments, Twitter, and Facebook, the Richard Menzies/Stan Gurcze/Virginia Avenue Press post has gotten the most comments than any other to date.  We’re pleased at the interest in our first book of 2011, to say the least.  One of the commenters on the original post mentioned that she found it while searching for something else, and then pointed fellow readers to the blog of Richard Menzies, who edited the Gurcze book, forthcoming this Fall.  I’ve been exchanging emails, letters, and manuscripts with Richard for some time now, and this is the first time I have learned of his blog, I am sorry to say.  I’m especially sorry because it’s such excellent writing about travels around the Great Basin.  Check it out here.  Read Richard’s bio here.  And start thumbing through his blog here.  If you are a fan of Nevada and western lit, you won’t be sorry.