'Águila' and 'Men of No Reputation': Now Available from University of Arkansas Press

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The University of Arkansas Press is pleased to announce that Águila: The Vision, Life, Death, and Rebirth of a Two-Spirit Shaman in the Ozark Mountains and Men of No Reputation: Robert Boatright, the Buckfoot Gang, and the Fleecing of Middle America are now available.

In Águila: The Vision, Life, Death, and Rebirth of a Two-Spirit Shaman in the Ozark Mountains, María Cristina Moroles traces the path of her extraordinary life from the streets of Dallas to the wilderness of the Arkansas Ozarks, where she has resided for 50 years. Hailing from a large Indigenous and Mexican American family in Texas, Moroles apprentices herself to healers and shamans across the Americas as she follows the spiritual vision that leads her to establish a mountaintop sanctuary for women and children of color in a notoriously insular location in the Ozark Mountains.

This is a survivor's tale, and a back-to-the-lander's tale, unlike any other. From early traumas to countercultural rebellion and profound spiritual awakening, Moroles recounts milestones that earn her the ceremonial names SunHawk and Águila, as she builds a sustainable community off the grid, atop a mountain otherwise uninhabited by human life. Águila tells the truth of one woman's search for freedom and all women's quest for dignity as it celebrates the healing powers of nature.

"I have long admired the work of María Cristina Moroles at Arco Iris, and now Águila celebrates her life and vision," writes Julie R. Enszer, editor and publisher, Sinister Wisdom. "Filled with stories from Moroles's life deftly assembled by Lauri Umansky, Águila demonstrates how to live honoring visions of peace and justice. Moroles has led a life filled with meaning and purpose; reading Águila, all may witness and emulate. Águila is fantastic!"

Men of No Reputation is the first account to explore the life of Robert Boatright, one of Middle America's most gifted, but forgotten, confidence men. Boatright's story provides a rare window into the secret world of Missouri's criminal past, which influenced the methods of confidence men across the country.

Boatright took the preexisting big-store confidence scheme and perfected it. With the assistance of a talented coterie of confederates known as the Buckfoot Gang, this "dean of modern confidence men" fleeced the gentry of the Midwest on fixed athletic contests in the turn-of-the-century Ozarks. Working in concert with a local bank and an influential Democratic boss, Boatright seemed untouchable. A series of missteps, however, led to a string of court cases across the country that brought his criminal enterprise to an end. And yet, the con continued. Boatright's successor, John C. Mabray, and his cronies, many of whom had been in the Buckfoot Gang, preyed upon victims across North America in one of the largest Midwestern criminal syndicates in history before they were brought to heel. Like the works of Sinclair Lewis, Boatright's story exposes a rift in the wholesome Midwestern stereotype and furthers our understanding of 19th- and 20th-century American society.

"Men of No Reputation is about the confidence racket in the Ozarks circa 1900, but along the way Kimberly Harper gives a compelling account of local politics, prizefighting, foot races, attitudes toward crime, and much else," writes Daniel Woodrell, author of Winter's Bone. "I finished reading this wonderfully written book feeling I'd just been educated."

Águila and Men of No Reputation are available at the University of Arkansas Press website, by calling the Chicago Distribution Center at 1-800-621-2736, or wherever books are sold.