A book both thoughtful and entertaining, Virtue Is Its Own
Punishment is the spirited account of author Richard Menzies’ own
life-transformative journey. On a pilgrimage extending from humble
Mormon beginnings in tiny Carbon County, Utah, through the trials
of pre-pubescence and the tribulations of adolescence, on through to
his first encounters with courtship, love, and ‘higher learning’ on the
campus at Brigham Young University, Menzies humorously depicts
his own passage—a portrait of the author as a young man-as he
struggles to come to terms with his own coming-of-age.
Richard Menzies has logged a quarter million miles on his vintage Volkswagen bus in pursuit of pictures and unusual stories. His favorite destination is Nevada, which encloses more open public land than any other state in the lower forty-eight.
“Nevada’s backcountry is sparsely populated yet surprisingly rich in diversity,” he writes. “Her social fabric is a colorful tapestry of cultures and ethnicities, fringed by eccentrics who simply defy categorization. Think of the Silver State as a haven for those irregular souls who could never be content with a nine-to-five job or a three-bedroom, split-level in suburbia.”
Passing Through is a compilation of the most memorable “misfits” Menzies has encountered in the course of his peripatetic wanderings across the American Outback.