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Desert Riverman, The Free-spirited Adventures of Murl Emery

KNAU News Talk - Arizona Public Radio | By Ann Cummins
Published May 14, 2010 at 4:39 PM MST

http://stream.publicbroadcasting.net/production/mp3/knau/local-knau-901575.mp3

Murl Emery wore many hats including beaver trapper, cattle rustler, bootlegger, ferryman, prospector, truck driver, inventor, miner, aviator and mechanic. But he was best known as the lead boatman during the construction of Hoover Dam. For this month's Southwest Book Review, Ann Cummins reviews Robert Wood's biography of Emery called Desert Riverman.

Ann Cummins is a writer and a creative writing professor at Northern Arizona University. Her husband Steve Willis is a singer and bandleader. KNAU's monthly Southwest Book Reviews with Ann Cummins are funded by The Babbitt Family of Flagstaff, proud supporters of the arts and KNAU.
Southwest Book Review Archive
Ann Cummins
Ann Cummins is Professor of Creative Writing at Northern Arizona University. She has published stories in The New Yorker, McSweeney’s, Antioch Review, and elsewhere; her fiction has been anthologized in a variety of series including The Best American Short Stories, The Prentice Hall Anthology of Women’s Literature, and The Anchor Book of New American Short Stories. A 2002 recipient of a Lannan Foundation Literary Fellowship, she is the author of the short story collection Red Ant House, (Houghton Mifflin, spring, 2003) and the novel Yellowcake (Houghton Mifflin, 2007).
See stories by Ann Cummins