Customer Reviews

A Santo in the Image of Cristobal Garcia

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i liked this novel as it is in the same family as marquez and allende. it's beautifully written and casts a lovely slow dark shadow, if you are in this sort of mood. i love the inherent sadness but warmth between and for the characters. with aging parents, it seems revealing how older people review in a non-sequential matter, their relationships, choices, things that they thought mattered with didn't and other subjects. the ghostly spector of good and evil permeates many sections, and implies that human relations carry weighty and far-reaching consequences. while bad behaviour is a given within this community, by individuals who are family members and/or neighbors, going too far is tied up within the notions of greed, magic, forces beyond one's control, and to an extent, race. essentially, i really loved the spell this novel cast and am looking forward to reading the others in the trilogy.

Northern New Mexico is unique in all the world. It has taken me more than 20 years living there to just begin to fathom the depth of its "terroir". Mr. Collignon has created magic in the pages of this book that lays bare the soul of memory and targets all small, close families and all small, close communities. Secrets become revealed fact as facts fade to secrets. Truth is an ethereal, mercurial concept in the Northern Counties' foothills.

I was struck throughout, by the lyrical style of the prose which reflects the soft cadence of local speech perfectly. I was reminded of Rudolpho Anaya's earliest work. This book belongs in the library of New Mexican literature along with Anaya, John Nichols and Tony Hillerman. For anyone who has spent time North of La Bajada, this is a must read, whether you have chosen to venture here, or were born part of the clay-rich soil.

I look forward to continuing my excursion into this author's other work.