The source materials for Frank Waters's writing are the lands and peoples of the Southwest. In Waters's novels and nonfiction works Indians, border mestizos, New Mexican Hispanics, Chinese immigrants, and whites (who run the gamut from tourists and hard-rock miners to Indian traders and atomic scientists) move across powerful Western landscapes dominated by mountains and deserts. That Waters chose to set his books in the Southwest when he knew that doing so was a virtual prescription for keeping them off best-seller lists speaks both to his deep attachment to his native region and his determination to write about what he knew best. Yet, Waters was no mere local colorist. Equipped with a thorough knowledge of American Indian religions, Buddhist philosophy, and Jungian psychology, he examined in his writings the dualities inherent in human existence and posited that these dualities might be reconciled through the mystical monism characteristic of...