NONFICTION - June 16, 1991

DESIERTO: Memories of the Future by Charles Bowden (W.W. Norton: $18.95; 224 pp.) . If you manage to struggle through the long first chapter, which seems to be a homage to Edward Abbey and other writers who have tried to define the Southwest, Charles Bowden’s “Desierto” begins to deliver a peculiar kind of reward. It’s a dark, troubling vision of life in the desert, defined broadly; of mountain lions and drug kingpins, Mexican hopes and Indian feuds, the destructive excesses of Charles Keating and the romantic faddishness of environmentalists. Bowden, author of “Mezcal,” “Red Line” and other books, is an observant reporter, but the primitive strength of “Desierto” derives from his compulsive hunger--the word comes up often--to examine and experience the underside of border life. His perspective is anti-romantic--none of the characters he encounters comes off well--but his writing, to its detriment, is not; though admirable sentences and paragraphs abound, too many are pretentious, emptily portentous or just plain impenetrable. Bowden, like the desert itself, isn’t to everyone’s taste, but fans of Castaneda and Traven will find much to like here.