Spirits of the Ordinary: A Tale of Casas Grandes [Paperback]

Kathleen Alcala (Author)

Book Description

Series: Harvest Book | Publication Date: May 21, 1998

This “strong and finely rendered book” (Larry McMurtry) takes us to the Mexican-american border in the 1870s, conjuring up a magical tale of faith, gold, and family passions that “echoes the style of Isabel Allende and Laura Esquivel” (Washington Post Book World). Winner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Book Award.

A spectacular tapestry of folklore, spirituality, and landscape, this extraordinary first novel vividly blurs fantasy and reality as it details one family's search for identity. In a small village in northern Mexico, the Carabajals have long been practicing their Jewish faith in secret. The father, Julio, spends his days dabbling with alchemy. His wife, Mariana, cannot speak but is clairvoyant. Their son has allied himself with a Catholic woman and is obsessed with his search for gold. Central to the surprising destinies of these characters are the momentous events and the ancient and sacred cliff dwellings of Casas Grandes, high in the mountains. This story of two cultures, of the elusive bonds of love and faith, is dazzling in its originality. It is for all readers who loved Allende's The House of Spirits or Esquivel's Like Water for Chocolate.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Kathleen Alcalá's first novel, Spirits of the Ordinary, opens in 1870s Mexico where Zacarias Caraval abandons his family and the religion of his fathers--Judaism--to search for gold in the desert. His wife, Estela, responds by declaring herself independent and taking a lover--an action frowned upon in the small village of Saltillo. Zacarias's wanderings take him into the mountains of Northern Mexico and to the cliff dwellings of Casas Grandes, where he witnesses a massacre--an event that will have a profound affect on him and will eventually send him back to the faith he has abandoned. Spirits of the Ordinary is the first book of a projected trilogy and judging by the quality of Ms. Alcalá's work so far, the next two volumes will be eagerly awaited. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

In her first novel, Alcala (author of the story collection Mrs. Vargas and the Dead Naturalist) has crafted a fecund fable about the convergence of cultures?Mexican, American and Jewish?along the Mexico/Texas border. The Carabajal family clandestinely practices their Jewish faith in a northern Mexican village of the 1870s. Julio spends his days in his secret Hebraic library; his wife, Mariana, hasn't uttered a word since childhood; and their son, Zacarias, who'd rather prospect for gold than learn a trade, has married a Catholic woman, Estela. Estela's family has a few secrets of their own: an intensely independent woman, Estela has raised her family single-handedly during her husband's long gold-hunting absences and has decided to cut him off financially; her younger brother and sister, twins, have been banished to Texas because of their scandalous androgyny; her unmarried daughter is pregnant; and now her own love affair with an army captain is about to be exposed, while her Zacarias is being hunted by the government for inciting a purported Indian uprising. In the tradition of Latin American literary fabulism, Alcala's seductive writing mixes fatalism and hope, logic and fantasy, to create moral, emotional and political complexities. But her characterizations and plot sparkle with a freshness that is an apt fit for the new social order she writes about with a multicultural vision notable for its lack of preachiness. Readers will be happy to learn that this enchanting episode is the first of a trilogy.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 256 pages
• Publisher: Mariner Books; 1 edition (May 21, 1998)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0156005689
• ISBN-13: 978-0156005685
• Product Dimensions: 8 x 5.4 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,796,443 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Kathleen Alcalá's life is all about stories. She is the author of four works of fiction - Mrs. Vargas and the Dead Naturalist; Spirits of the Ordinary; The Flower in the Skull; and Treasures in Heaven - and a collection of essays. Her work is the recipient of a Governor's Writers Award, the Washington State Book Award, a Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award, and a Western States Book Award, among others. Kathleen teaches Creative Writing in the Low Residency MFA program at the Northwest Institute of Literary Arts on Whidbey Island. Two of her stories are included in the recent Norton Anthology of Latino Literature. More at www.kathleenalcala.com.

"I began writing as a way to explain the world to myself. So much family history did not match the 'official' history of the Southwest, that I had to become an explorer, an adventurer, an ethnographer, a scholar and a writer in order to discover who we were and who we are today. I believe that writing, in and of itself, is a political act, and that the artistic cannot be separated from the political. Writing makes the invisible, visible; the silent, audible; the absent, present."

Quotes:

This is a book of wonders. Each story unfolds with humor and simplicity and perfect naturalness into something original and totally unpredictable. Not one tale is like another, yet all together they form a beautiful whole, a world where one would like to stay forever. The kingdoms of Borges and Garcia Marquez lie just over the horizon, but this landscape of desert towns and dreaming hearts, of lost sisters and ghost scientists, canary singers and road readers, is Alcalá-land. It lies across the border between the living and the dead, across all the borders - a true new world.
- Ursula K. LeGuin on Mrs. Vargas and the Dead Naturalist

Kathleen Alcalá captures the essence of the magical realism in her work. Her stories convincingly move the reader from one reality to the other. Kathleen's craft illuminates the souls of her characters: the Mexican women who carry the universe in their hearts.

- Rudolfo Anaya

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Great example of the "mystical" style of Hispanic writing., August 2, 1999

By A Customer

This review is from: Spirits of the Ordinary: A Tale of Casas Grandes (Paperback)

Hispanic writing today seems to fall within three distinct categories, i.e., contemporary fiction (mostly urban in context), historical fiction and mystical fiction. With "Spirits of the Ordinary" Kathleen Alcala has supplied us with an excellent example of the mystical genre which is, insofar as I can assess, by far the most difficult and interesting format to work with and master.

Set in the late 19th century, the book essentially is the story of one man-born a Jew, married into a large Catholic family, so estranged from both he lives essentially alone prospecting for gold in the mountains of old Mexico-who eventually becomes the equivalent of a shaman to and for the indiginious Indian communities in Northern Mexico/Southern New Mexico.

Alcala hits the righ tone by introducing her mysticim indirectly and in a low key--the requisite angels, spirits and revelations are present, but are a complement to rather than the focus of the basic story.

The book exhibits flaws common to the debut novel--sometimes disjointed, major characters a bit too out of focus, minor characters given too much play, etc., but the genuiness of the story, the aura of mysticims established, the overll quality of the writing and the extraordinary bredth of the core characters more than compensate for these weaknesses.

Overall, this was one of the best novels I'e read this year and I highly recommend it.

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Good (but not great) First Novel, January 29, 2007

By 

Amber Gray-fenner (Albuquerque, NM USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Spirits of the Ordinary: A Tale of Casas Grandes (Paperback)

In her first novel Alcala writes the story of Zacharias, a Mexican Jew who, in the late 19th century, leaves Mexico to pursue his dreams of finding gold in North America. He leaves behind his wife and children and his Jewish parents. His wife, tired of him spending her father's money on his prospecting expeditions, does the unthinkable and has herself declared financially independent of her husband. His father, a scholar who cannot understand his son's wanderlust, studies Kabbalah with the hope of understanding where his son went, both figuratively and literally.

On its dust jacket, the novel is described in terms of other authors of epic and mystic Hispanic fiction (Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Jose Luis Borges), which is why I chose to read it.
Alcala does a beautiful job of giving the novel a sense of place in both Old Mexico and New Mexico. Her characters are engaging and complex. Her writing style is, indeed, reminiscent of more established (indeed legendary) Hispanic authors. Perhaps this is why I was so disappointed in the novel itself. For the first two-thirds or so, the novel progresses wonderfully and draws you into the lives of these remarkable characters. It's in the last third that, for me, it all falls apart. The end of the novel wraps up too quickly compared to the pace established at the beginning with many of the characters' stories being finished unsatisfactorily, or not at all (some characters simply are not mentioned again.

I have just read that this is the first novel of a trilogy, so perhaps the next two will pick up the threads of some of the missing characters' lives. Unfortunately, when I initially read the book I don't remember any indication that it was one of three so I was expecting it to stand on its own and it didn't quite do that. So, while I thought it was a good book, I was disappointed because I was expecting a great book. I'm still undecided as to whether or not to read the second book in the trilogy when/if it is available.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Wonderful..., March 8, 2010

By 

M. Nichols (San Francisco, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Spirits of the Ordinary: A Tale of Casas Grandes (Paperback)

I loved this book. It is rich in biblical themes and Mexican history, with touches of magical realism and Cabala before it was trendy (this book was published in 1996 originally). I felt transported to the red earth desert. There was a spare poetry to the words that seduced me. I didn't want to the pages to end. I'm sorry to hear that the sequel is disappointing.