Perdido [Paperback]

Rick Collignon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: February 1, 1999

The second novel by this hauntingly lyrical stylist returns to the rustic New Mexican village of Guadalupe, where a man learns that it's possible to be part of a town's tapestry without every being fully woven into its fabric...

Editorial Reviews

From Library Journal

What drives Will Sawyer to pursue the truth about the death 20 years before of a young white girl in the New Mexico village of Guadeloupe never becomes clear. Neither does the truth itself. What is clear is that the townspeople, including Will's girlfriend, Lisa, do not support his desire to dig into past events and disturb those who were involved. Set in the same village as Collignon's first novel, The Journal of Antonio Montoya (LJ 5/1/96), Perdido describes tense relationships between ethnic and racial groups while delving into the concept of identity and providing subtle touches of magical realism. Eventually finding the solution to the mystery, however, may be of the utmost importance to some readers. Others will merely settle back and thoroughly enjoy the journey on which Collignon takes them. For all fiction collections.?Faye A. Chadwell, Univ. of Oregon, Eugene
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

From Booklist

Collignon follows up his first book, The Journal of Antonio Montoya (1996), with another slight but rather wonderful novel. Will Sawyer, one of the few Anglos living in a small New Mexico town, becomes intrigued with the story of a young Anglo woman who was found hanging from a bridge more than two decades before. Will's innocent questions regarding the death recall an event that many of the villagers would rather not remember, and the violence that follows leaves one man brutally beaten and one man dead. While some readers may be frustrated by Collignon's technique of dropping the reader into the middle of the story, leaving both the past and the future unexplained, those who don't mind a little mystery in their literary fiction (one never learns, for example, what brought Will to New Mexico 18 years before or how and why the girl hanging from the bridge died) will discover a well-written novel, whose simple and direct narrative contrasts ironically with the multitude of secrets that burden the lives of its well-drawn characters. Nancy Pearl --This text refers to the Hardcover edition.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (February 1, 1999)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0380732203
• ISBN-13: 978-0380732203
• Product Dimensions: 6.9 x 4.9 x 0.7 inches
• Shipping Weight: 5.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (4 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,056,691 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars one breezy read, April 22, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Perdido (Hardcover)

Tension is the word in this tale about a gringo in a largely Hispanic New Mexican locale, and the reader keeps waiting for the next shoe to drop. The trouble begins when this laid-back white man fails to mind his own affairs in a land where things just aren't done that way. Certain of the natives would have him pay for this transgression. The book is full of wonderful, realistic dialogue placed before an elegantly limned backdrop of this tough western landscape. One interesting facet is the way the author uses his construction experience and knowledge to describe various dillapidated buildings--very interesting, and he notices things a layman might not notice in a dozen years, which helps add to the overall realism of this novel. And if any male reader doesn't fall for his Lisa Segura, the gringo's tough, vibrant love interest, he is made of the stuff of Gunga Din.

4 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Elegant prose about mysterious people in a fascinating place, April 23, 1999

By 

T. Hester (Silver City NM) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Perdido (Paperback)

The title means lost. A reader puts down the book not quite clear about who or what was lost or how, but feeling the title perfect. Like most good novels Perdido calls up other good, even great literature. Albert Camus' l'Etranger and Hemingway's "A Clean Well-Lighted Place" and OHara's Appointment in Samara echo in the chiseled, poetic prose and through the oblique character development.

Like all good, even great literature, Perdido moves through several levels. There's a single man who's looking for attachment. The modest hero has and loses a place in the ancient community, a traditional adobe house, an image of the Virgen de Guadalupe, a promiscuous girlfriend, and a business partner who is a good friend powerless against culture. He's Anglo among Hispanos. The Hispanos--linked in complex, roiling families--deal with the present only through the rich, confusing past or pasts.

But that's not a description to entice new readers for a novel that deserves to be read. There are other key elements: the naked young woman found hanging from the bridge twenty-years before and a former sheriff's deputy who is dying of cancer, whose secret is aired, and who knows how to get even.

How can we discern America's heart at the close of our century? Perdido tells us to look to an isolated corner of northern New Mexico and think about the 18th century.

4.0 out of 5 stars A great escape!, January 13, 2000

By 

T. J. Mathews (Livermore, CA USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Perdido (Paperback)

'Perdido' is a colorful tale of an Anglo construction worker struggling to fit in in a Northern New Mexico village. It is a passionate story, rich in the tales and oral traditions of the region. I wonder if it may be a bit autobiograghical.