Baumgart's Yuck

Baumgart's Yuck

Bruce Von Stiers

Barret Baumgart is the author of the nonfiction book China Lake. Named a Book of the Year by Kirkus, China Lake won the 2016 Iowa Prize for Literary Nonfiction.

Baumgart has a new book out. This one takes on a different topic, at least somewhat. The title of the new book is Yuck. It is being published by Wandering Aengus Press.

So, what is Yuck about? On the surface, the book is about the yucca brevifolia, better known as the Joshua Tree. But as you delve deeper into the contents, the book is so much more.

In 2019, Baumgart and his fiancé Christina were planning on getting married. Although it wasn't exactly a destination wedding, the two decided to get married in the Joshua Tree National Park. Wanting something unique and special, Baumgart was going to assemble a booklet of facts and history of the yucca plant to hand out as a wedding favor for guests.

Due to the pandemic, the wedding was not held in the Joshua Tree National Park. But what to do with all this research? Too much time and effort went into it just to let the research sit there and gather dust. So Baumgart took that research, added his own bits and pieces of insight, and that became Yuck.

The thing to understand about this book is that it seems to be more of a literary prose volume than just straight, cut and dried nonfiction. Although there are plenty of facts, figures and information, the book has an almost poetry volume sense to it.

Baumgart tells of the history of the yucca plant and how native Americans called it a bridge, while the invading Spaniards called it the “desert dagger.”

In addition to the information about the yucca, Baumgart delves into the influx of people moving to the Los Angeles area. And how it was massively promoted by the Chamber of Commerce. It seemed that entire areas were now being excavated and turned into plotted land for real estate development. Even Antelope Valley, which apparently had a large population of yucca.

Yuck is a interesting book. Not only does it have a lot of information about the yucca brevifolia, it also has a distinct interpretation of the Los Angeles area real estate boon of the late 1800's. And all done in a style of poetic prose.

Yuck is available at major book retailers such as amazon.

You can learn more about Yuck at the publisher's website at https://wanderingaenguspress.com/index.html

Barret Baumgart also has a website. That site is https://www.barretbaumgart.com/

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