‘A Race to the Bottom of Crazy’: New book mixes memoir, research and reporting

When Richard Grant and his wife moved with their four-year-old daughter back to Tucson, Arizona, where the couple first met, he expected to easily rekindle his love of the region. Instead, he found a housing market gone haywire, rampant election conspiracies and right-wing political violence.

Arizona saw record-breaking heat and drought records and was running out of long-term water supplies. Yet these concerns weren’t keeping people away. Arizona was simultaneously experiencing some of the nation’s highest population growth.

In “A Race to the Bottom of Crazy,” Grant mixes memoir, research and reporting to understand what makes Arizona such a confounding and irresistible place.

Grant has lived in many places allowing for a diverse view of life from around the world.

“I’ve had an odd life. I moved to from London, England to Tucson to Mississippi for nine years and then back to Tucson. We loved Mississippi but the social conformity was just a bit too much for us there. We were raising a daughter and her parameters seemed wider in Arizona than in Mississippi,” Grant said.

Moving during the pandemic wasn’t the easiest for Grant’s family though.

“My daughter was four turning five so she took things in her stride pretty well back then, but the thing I remember is that the mountains above Tucson were on fire that summer and it was the hottest, driest summer on record. We couldn’t find a house to live in. We were moving from one temporary rental to another with COVID on top of that,” Grant said.

Grant is known for his risk-taking and journalism around the world, even following cartels for his work. Now as a family man, life has changed.

“It’s a simple answer because I became a father in my mid 40’s. My main job was therefore to stay alive and taking foolish risks in places like Mexico and Haiti where I used to travel a lot seemed off the menu. I think fatherhood rewires you a little bit. The urge to take risks in faraway places diminishes,” Grant said.

Grant documented this shift in times with his perspectives from around the globe within A Race to the Bottom of Crazy.