Everett Ruess : His Short Life, Mysterious Death, and Astonishing Afterlife

Everett Ruess was twenty years old when he vanished into the canyonlands of southern Utah, spawning the myth of a romantic desert wanderer that survives to this day. It was 1934, and Ruess was in the fifth year of a quest to record wilderness beauty in works of art whose value was recognized by such contemporary artists as Dorothea Lange, Ansel Adams, and Edward Weston. From his home in Los Angeles, Ruess walked, hitchhiked, and rode burros up the California coast, along the crest of the Sierra Nevada, and into the deserts of the Southwest. In the first probing biography of Everett Ruess, acclaimed environmental historian Philip L. Fradkin goes beyond the myth to reveal the realities of Ruess's short life and mysterious death and finds in the artist's astonishing afterlife a lonely hero who persevered. Everett Ruess was twenty years old when he vanished into the canyonlands of southern Utah, spawning the enduring myth of a romantic desert wanderer. It was 1934, and Ruess was in the fifth year of a quest to record wilderness beauty in works of art; their value was recognized by such contemporary artists as Dorthea Lange, Ansel Adams, and Edward Weston. From his home in Los Angeles, Ruess walked, hitchhiked, and rode burros up the California coast, along the crest of the Sierra Nevada, and into the deserts of the Southwest. Acclaimed environmental historian Philip L. Fradkin goes beyond the myth toe reveal the realities of Ruess's short life and unexplained disappearance and finds in the artist's heralded afterlife a lonely hero who persevered -- Book jacket A look at the truth and myths surrounding his life and disappearance at age 20 in the Utah canyonlands.