Join us for the launch of local author Betsy Bernfeld’s newest release The Journal of Henry David Tarantula from 5pm-7pm, January 25th. The celebration will include an author reading, signing, and light refreshments.

About the Book:

Who the H is Henry David Tarantula?

That’s what George P. Stone, Mayor of William, Arizona, wants to know. Particularly since he is the mayor’s opponent in the upcoming election.

Henry David Tarantula lives in a cave above the town of William. He has assumed the unusual name as he portrays himself as the Henry David Thoreau of the Southwest. His desert residency is modeled after Thoreau’s famous stay at Walden Pond. In his political campaign, Henry David stands for water preservation, and he rails against air conditioning and exotic pollen.

Mayor Stone’s version of Walden is a Waldon construction tractor. He promotes progress in the form of watermelon farming, and he promises to clean the caves of their free-loading inhabitants and rampant beer cans, which he avidly recycles.

The political campaign is all so philosophical until Henry David meets Virginia Stone, the mayor’s daughter. She is stalking him with a flower-intensive science project. The three-way power struggle is joined by an endangered wolf from Chihuahua, Mexico. The desert blooms, beer cans roll, and animals dream in this humorous environmental love story.

About Betsy:

Originally from Tucson, Arizona, Bernfeld has lived in Jackson Hole for nearly 50 years. She is a former director of the Teton County Library and former executive director of the Teton County Access to Justice Center. Better known in writing circles for her poetry, Bernfeld has published two collections, The Cathedral Is Burning (2021) and Eve (2018), and she edited a historical collection of Wyoming Poetry, Sagebrush Classics: Pure Wyoming Stuph (1990).