Ken Sanders Rare Books, in partnership with The University of Utah Press and Utah Humanities Council, are pleased to welcome Stephen Lottridge to Salt Lake City for a reading and signing of The Book of Bauer: Stories from a Lost Town.

 

About The Book of Bauer

Graffiti-covered industrial concrete ruins are all that remain today to remind us of the lives, adventures, and human relationships that once animated Bauer, Utah. Located just south of Tooele, across the Oquirrh Mountains west of the Salt Lake Valley, Bauer was abandoned in 1979 and declared a toxic waste site. The Book of Bauer: Stories from a Forgotten Town brings it back to life, evoking mid-twentieth century family and community in that company town as seen through the eyes of an observant adolescent boy.

Presenting a dramatic snapshot of life in Bauer in narrative autobiographical form, the book recalls the fate of hundreds of derelict mining towns throughout the mountain and sagebrush West. With vivid prose and intimate observation, The Book of Bauer offers an unparalleled memoir of small-town life in Utah and the Great Basin.

Reviews

“A beautifully written, deeply felt, and profoundly moving portrait of a family during one difficult year in a desolate, desecrated western town not long after the end of the Second World War. It is a vividly detailed chronicle of their challenges and satisfactions, of their quiet joys and sorrows and strengths that, at least for a time, held them together. The Book of Bauer is a poignant American story that should not be forgotten.”

Joel Lafayette Fletcher III, author of With Hawks and Angels: Episodes from a Southern Life

"The descriptions are vivid, often humorous and compassionate, and unusually thoughtful, even wise. To read the collection at the personal memoir level is delightful, as Stephen S. Lottridge is a confident memoirist and storyteller."

Audrey M. Kleinsasser, University of Wyoming

About Stephen Lottridge

Stephen S. Lottridge is the author of Three White Pelicans: Stories for Stephanie and Deirdre and The Old Bison: Threads from the Fabric of a Western Life. His award-winning play Gun Control was produced by Riot Act Inc. theater company. His poetry and essays have appeared in print journals, anthologies, and online.

More about The Book of Bauer can be found at:

https://uofupress.com/books/the-book-of-bauer/