Land Beyond Maps

Land Beyond Maps by Maida Tilchen won the 2000 Arch and Bruce Brown Foundation Full- Length Lesbian/Gay Historical Fiction Competition. Maida Tilchen won Honorable Mention, 2007 Astraea Foundation Lesbian Writers Award in Fiction. Land Beyond Maps tells of midlife lesbians and their friends in Santa Fe and the Navajolands through the boom and bust of 1929, closely based on the true story of a landscape photographer Laura Gilpin (1891-1979), who is considered America’s most distinguished woman landscape photographer. Ambitious archaeologists, zealous missionaries, quietly forceful Navajo women, and overeager tourists intensify this fast-paced story. Based on extensive research, Land Beyond Maps is a novel of women’s history, travel, biography, and adventure, drawing the reader into the lives of women who find new adventures, new careers, and new passions later in life. It depicts a romantic era not previously portrayed in contemporary fiction, despite the current interest in books about the Southwest and women’s history. Just before the 1929 Crash, middle-aged Laura Gilpin accompanies her life partner, nurse Betsy Forster (1886-1972) to an isolated Navajo community. There Betsy provides medical care while respectfully learning about Navajo culture and healing methods, and Laura finds her artistic vision by taking her classic photographs of the Navajo and the southwestern landscape. From the Navajo friends that they make, including medicine man Setah Begay, who shyly examines Betsy’s medical tools; Lilly, who would rather go to college than weave; and Mrs. Manyskirts, who has learned to hold her own against white exploitation; they learn the complexity of the choices introduced to traditional people by modern culture. The composite characters who become Laura and Betsy’s friends include Gloucester fish-packer Jonnie Bell, who finds more satisfying work at an archaeological dig in a desert canyon; Bronxborn Ruth Weinstock, who is sent to die in a Santa Fe TB sanitorium but breathes fresher air exploring the wild lands and creatures of the Southwest; and Greenwich Village artist Morna, who goes west for her art but ends up desperate to escape a scenic but forlorn trading post. These are stories many of us will recognize and identify with: older working women struggling to pay the bills, but determined to accomplish meaningful artistic, scientific, and social justice goals. As one reader described it, “Instead of frolicking about adobe mansions, we sleep in the straw of a stable loft and work in a modest photographer’s studio. We see the tourist trade from behind the wheel of a tourbus, and we labor in the dirt in a low status vis-a-vis archaeologists from the Eastern Ivy schools.” From the Back Cover Travel to a Land Beyond Maps! A time–the early 20th Century; and a place–the American Southwest–cast a net of enchantment around an intriguing cast. Here is fiercely shielded Navajo treasure, the interweaving of distant cultures, religious hellfire, and all the delicate and explosive power of forbidden love. Historical characters move through the rooms of story to mingle with the singular humans whom Maida Tilchen infuses with vivid life. Spellbinding people, enmeshed in the stark beauty of a Land Beyond Maps. — Ann Bannon, author The Beebo Brinker Chronicles Land Beyond Maps joins a deep knowledge of New Mexico’s landscape and history with the story of women who act against the cultural restraints of their time. Anchored by the experiences of the photographer Laura Gilpin, Land Beyond Maps offers unique insight into a world whose mixture of beauty and challenges continue to color our perception of the American Southwest. Read and enjoy! — Summer Wood, author of the novel Arroyo