House of Rain: Tracing a Civilization Across the American Southwest

• Nonfiction. By Craig Childs. Little, Brown, $24.99. Grade: A

Book in a nutshell: Childs knows the Southwest, having published several books on desert subjects. He's acquainted with archeologists who work there, and although self-described as a "glorified vagabond" rather than a scientist, he deeply understands the Anasazi, a culture that thrived in southwest New Mexico for centuries, until it vanished in the 13th century, leaving historians to ponder the mystery of its demise.

This book is Childs' quest to solve that mystery. He travels north from Chaco Canyon in New Mexico to Mesa Verde in Colorado, then on a longitudinal meridian through southeastern Arizona to Mexico in search of the vanishing point.

Along the way, he does what no scientist would do in any official finding - he populates the landscape with his imagination, seeing the men and women of this desert world working and resting, making the pots that are found along the way. He sleeps where they slept and searches for water where they found none. It's an adventure story, a history and a cultural analysis all wrapped in exceptional writing.

This is a biblical migration of a people wandering in the wilderness. But their meandering is not random; rather it follows a cultural history over the span of a thousand years.

What happened at the end of the 13th century, when, according to popular thought, the Anasazi vanished? Childs argues that they migrated, leaving a trail of architecture, pottery style and language in a chronological line south. At the end of his journey, he finds they didn't vanish at all, but became a culture fused with others at Hopi, Kayenta and the last great houses of the Sal- ado culture in east central Arizona.

Best tidbit: The author takes the violent, ritual killings of the later Anasazi culture head-on, when most archaeologists tread lightly on the subject. His reasoning is that it makes the history more human to us. "Like the rest of us, they engaged in death."

Pros: Childs makes the story of that distant culture ring true.

Cons: At times his personal conjecture leads too far afield of accepted reality.

Final word: "What you see in the Southwest is temporary, everything caught in motion," the author writes. That applies to the topography of the Southwest, but also to the culture he is chasing. Childs creates a living world in this exceptional book.