Customer Reviews

The Indian Lover: A Novel

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

Garth Murphy took fifteen years to write this book, which explains why a reader without prior knowledge of the Californio days will close it feeling satisfied--having learned his history wrapped within an exciting story of love and betrayal. A young Easterner, Bill Marshall, is lured to California in the mid-1800s and his adventure becomes our history lesson. The women in his life--the mayor's daughter, Lugarda, and the native chief's daughter, Falling Star-take their place as unwitting heroines.
It's fascinating to read about the nature of the hardy and unworldly individuals of the times, since all but the best of us know instinctively that we couldn't survive one month in similar situations. The details of their living flow, revealing the enormous amount of research, though the facile way it is written belies the effort. The descriptions of the natural settings are enchanting; those of us most content in nature will love reading every single detail of the land and sea, smelling and feeling the living in the canyons under the oaks and the sleeping on the beaches.
Murphy writes about Bill Marshall's sexual relationships with an uncanny knowledge of the way a woman's mind works. With native women, he finds sex is wonderfully natural, earthy, uncomplicated. When Falling Star finally surprises Bill with what every woman can relate to, that he was initially an insensitive lover, we have to chuckle. One minute Murphy has on the eyes of the cynical male, the next minute he makes us laugh with his female perspective on callow sex. Not since Larry McMurtry's "Lonesome Dove" have I had the pleasure of thinking a male has figured us out.
At the end, Falling Star's dispassionate outlook is strangely soothing; it lends itself to a sequel. This story spins and spins. It's good and strong like beef stew and biscuits.

The other reviews sum it up... it's a great book, especially if you live in the area. It's really fun to read about places you've actually been to. Also, it's quite an eye opener to see how badly the natives of California were treated by wave after wave of immigrants.

I was quite pleasantly surprised at the depth and breathe of the writer. Is this a man who can also know and write about women and animals so well? Even though I am a strict vegan I appreciated the hunting descriptions as well. Great sensitivity towards the Native American quandry combined with engrossing story. The area will never again seem the same. Thank you for your gift Mr. Murphy.

Every day, due to comercial and housing developments, there are fewer untouched areas of San Diego that can transport you to the time of the Gold Rush. THIS BOOK IS A TREASURE WORTH MORE THAN ITS WEIGHT IN GOLD. I remember as a child roaming the wild wheat feilds and rolling hills of pure unadulterated Southern California. Every time I read The Indian Lover I relive the adventure of long horseback rides through the countryside and discovering the sights, sounds, smells and tastes of plants, streams, ponds, lakes, canyons and animals. The romance is steaming hot with fantasically descriptive scenes but still leaves something for the imagination. The history of the Native American tribes in the San Diego area is not widely known and it is quite a blessing to finally be awakened to some of the beauty as well as harsh reality. This is a must read!!!

As a Californian and lover of cultural and natural history, I was excited to find this book. "Finally," I thought, "Some historical fiction about the early days of California. And he includes a native viewpoint, excellent!" Then I started to read it and read passages like the following, from page 23: "Grizzly bears are native to California, and were the undisputed kings of the land until the Spanish arrived. The native people revered them, not as gods to worship, but as equals."

Say what? You can respect something as an equal, but the word "revere" automatically suggests a sense of, well... REVERENCE! Okay, maybe I'm splitting hairs here. Murphy spent a lot of time in Australia; maybe they use the word differently there. But I must ask: if the bears were the undisputed kings, how could they be equal to the native people?

This is just one of many passages in "The Indian Lover" that reads like a bad encyclopedia entry. This style even finds its ways into the speech of the characters, who sometimes sound as if they are reading something off of Wikipedia to their friends. For instance, on page 74, Murphy's Indian character, Pablo, tells his white friend (the main character, Bill), "An ocean-going trout or small salmon called steelhead returns to this river each year to spawn." Then there is the nearly two-page history of California up to 1845 from the perspective of a Catholic friar, given as a speech by such, to Bill. Yes, it's true that a friar could give a lecture to a newcomer, but the whole thing sounded fake to me.

The author also seems to be a bit of a mission apologist. While I applaud him for writing about the complexity of native Californian cultures -- one of the good things in this book -- he paints the Missions as some kind of Catholic utopia that was only ruined by the greed of the Californio ranchers after the Mexican revolution. Murphy rightly states that the Missions were built by Indian labor, but neglects to mention any threat of coercion or violence on the part of the padres. On page 64 he writes: "...Mission San Luis Rey was a miracle. Before the mission, the local natives had been known by their village names... Forever after, they were called Luiseno, proudly linking themselves with the mission they had helped build." Murphy is a little misguided here: the Spanish could not pronounce the local names, nor did they really care about such "heathen" things, so they gave their own name to the locals. They did this throughout California, which is why the Tong-va are also known as the Gabrielino, for instance.

Then Murphy writes that it was the awesomeness of the building that caused conversions to to Christianity: "The wily padres conceived most of their new Christian conversions by the power of this awesome temple." I laughed out loud when I read that. The Missions were an abject failure and failed to attract many native converts until they had been present for 5-8 years, by which time the large number of live-stock (sheep, horses, pigs, goats, cattle) introduced by the Spanish, combined with the suppression of native burning regimes, had decimated native plant food sources. This, along with a high incidence of Spanish-introduced disease, forced many of the natives to seek food at the Missions and spiritual protection against the strange diseases by the ritual of baptism.

I am gravely disappointed by the lack of human complexity in this novel. Each culture comes off as a different stereotype: The innocent, spiritual Indians. The well meaning, peaceful padres. The greedy, dirty, violent, lazy Californios. The land-hungry industrious Americans. Instead of creating a novel in which the main character has his loyalties divided between different people who may happen to come from different cultures (as the book jacket hints), he has written one where the main character is afflicted by different stereotypes.

Murphy does write beautifully at time of the southern Californian landscape, but these descriptions are often marred by factual errors. He writes that condors and golden eagles both have eight-foot wingspans. He also has his characters eating corn on the cob and harvesting acorns in the middle of January. While it its true that California is and was a place of abundance, not every food source is available year round. If you think I'm wrong, try harvesting acorns yourself in the middle of winter. If the feral pigs, deer, squirrels, and scrub jays haven't eaten them all by then, that is.

This novel idealizes the Californian Indian way of life by making it seem like the people didn't have to do anything to procure food sources from wild plants. This is entirely false and laughable. With few exceptions, Native Californians intensely managed their environment through low-intensity fires at different times for different reasons, one of which was to increase the yield and abundance of certain plant species they relied on for food. As I stated before, the Spanish altered this relationship and it was disastrous for the native peoples. By the time of this novel, the California Indians would have had a hard time living in their traditional way -- and they did indeed. One of the few cultural complexities Murphy includes is in writing about Indians making their living in the Californio or Mexican manner through farming and cattle-raising, but this is seen more as a kind of "not-wanting-to-seem-savage" status thing than as an economic and environmental necessity.

But Murphy does write good descriptions of man-woman interactions. Some of the other reviewers wrote about this. Perhaps he should have written a contemporary love story set in California. It would would have come off as more truthful and real. Each one of the problems I mentioned is not a big thing on its own, but all together just makes for poor writing and a n uneven novel. I thought after 15 years of writing Murphy would have created a masterpiece, instead he has sorely let me down.

This is a wonderful book...Especially for those of us from the
San Diego area...those of us who are familiar with the Sacred
places mentioned in this story...

Garth Murphy takes you on a time travel back to the beginings of california. The atmosphere is wonderfully engaging and his blend of history and romance is compelling. I could not put the book down once I had started. A must read for anyone ready to be transported back into an adventurous and unpredictable world!

This entertaining historic novel is a must read for anyone that grew up in California and is amazed by how wonderful this state we live in is and has any interest in what it must have been like in the early days. The writer did a great job of painting a picture of the simple and harmonic life the local Indians enjoyed and the turmoil and injustices they endured. The book made me wish i could have spent some time sharing the good they enjoyed!

A fictionalized history of San diego for a ten year span when the United States beat the Spanish and CAlifornia became part of the US. The novel focuses on William Marshall, a Euro American, hung by the American military for siding with the Native Americans and committing treason. Murphy revises that history (a revision that historians have also started to adopt) to argue that Marshall was not involved in any of the attacks he was accused of and was only guilty of being friends with (and married to) Indians.

Murphy does a wonderful job of painting California at this point in history, the cultural clashes and the largely unsuccessful attempts to bridge the gaps across culture.

The novel is engaging and the history interesting. I would like to know more about California history of this era. As usual, the white people do not stand out as particularly tolerant of difference

I read this book because I lived in North County San Diego for 15 years. As previously mentioned it took the writer 15 years to write this book, well I feel like it took 15 years to read it. Although the history is interesting to somebody who knows and cares about the area the characters and story line are elementary and boring at best. The development of characters and dialogue are forced and unrealistic.I've read text books the held my interest better.