Philip Connors’ first book, Fire Season, received rave reviews and honors, including the 2011 National Outdoor Book Award for the tale of his life as a fire lookout in the Gila wilderness area of southwestern New Mexico.

Connors’ newest book, All The Wrong Places: A Life Lost and Found, acts as a sort of prequel, letting readers in on the events which led to his decision to uproot his life as a copy editor in a cubical in the offices of The Wall Street Journal to watching for wildfires from a 7-foot-by-7-foot glass-enclosed cube that hovered more than 10,000 feet above sea level.

Connors begins his journey with his arrival in Albuquerque to visit his younger brother Dan, who has just gotten engaged, and to meet his new fiancee and her family. Dan introduces Connors to the delights of New Mexico, including the cuisine and the all-important question: red or green?

When Dan takes Connors on a ride in a hot-air balloon, the quiet and beauty of the experience help bring the brothers closer than they have been for years. Unfortunately, near the end of his visit, Dan utters a shocking statement that cools Connors’ desire for renewed closeness.

Months later, Connors is living in New York City when he receives a life-changing phone call from his father. Dan has committed suicide, a shattering event that alters the course of Connors’ life. The majority of the book revolves around his attempts to come to grips with Dan’s demise and the fact that his death was a choice.

The statistics surrounding suicide deaths in the United States are sobering and surprising. According to the Centers for Disease Control and Prevention, and using data from 2013, the most recent figures show that suicide is the 10th-leading cause of death in the U.S.

The rate for men is four times that for females and more than half are completed by firearms. By the numbers, someone dies by their own hand about every 12 minutes. More people die by suicide than by homicide or car accidents.

Most relevant to Connors’ story is the fact that every suicide death affects at least six people close to, or related to, the victim. These “survivors of suicide” must cope with far more than the grief felt by loss of a loved one. Families usually have to deal with feelings of guilt, anger (The victim is also the perpetrator), resentment, remorse and a plethora of similar, conflicting emotions. Connors’ journey to come to grips with his brother’s death ultimately leads him back to New Mexico.

Connors has penned an intimate, brutally honest account of his attempt to carry on living after losing his brother. He makes some poor choices on his way; he seems rudderless, unmoored. He moves to the Bedford Stuyvesant neighborhood of Brooklyn, where he has some interesting experiences as one of the area’s few white residents.

He discovers the ups and downs of using a phone-sex line in New York City. And he drones away, first as a fax boy and then as a copy editor at The Wall Street Journal. When he finally realizes that he won’t find answers there, he removes himself to the solitude of a lookout tower in the wilds of the Gila and finds what he yearns for within himself.

All The Wrong Places is a powerful memoir that will engross readers with its poignant and beautiful narrative. It is a messy story that strives, then succeeds in honoring survival and endurance.

sierrapoco@yahoo.com. Leslie Doran is a Durango freelance reviewer.

Review

All the Wrong Places by Philip Connors. W. W. Norton & Co. 256 pages, hardcover, $25.95.

If you go

Maria’s Bookshop in Durango will host a book-signing with Philip Connors at 6:30 p.m. March 4.