Stallion Gate [Audiobook] [Audio Cassette]

Martin Cruz Smith (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: May 12, 1987

In a New Mexico blizzard, four men cross a barbed-wire fence at Stallion Gate to select a test site for the first atomic weapon. They are Oppenheimer, the physicist; Groves, the general; Fuchs, the spy. The fourth man is Sergeant Joe Pena, a hero, informer, fighter, musician, Indian. These four men -- and a cast of soldiers, roughnecks and scientists -- will change history forever.


From the Paperback edition.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Smith seamlessly blends fact and fiction in this towering novel, a successor to his remarkable Gorky Park. The story begins at Los Alamos in 1945, where hordes of people arrive and set up a community almost overnight. Sgt. Joe Pena, an Indian in the U.S. Army, is ordered by his superior, Capt. Augustino, to find or fabricate proof that Robert Oppenheimer is spying for "the commies." The charge is silly, Pena knows, but he fails to convince Augustino, who also ignores the sergeant's evidence against two actual traitors at the site: Harry Gold and Klaus Fuchs. Pena's troubles multiply with his involvement with local Native Americans, disturbed by the mysterious activities on their land. As the days pass and work on the atom bomb progresses, the clash between Pena and the insanely bigoted captain becomes unavoidable. It occurs at the peak of suspense and leaves a lasting impact on the reader. This is a monumental thriller in which the tormented Oppenheimer, Edward Teller, General Leslie Groves and other historic figures live again. Equally memorable is Joe Pena, a genuine hero. 125,000 first printing; major ad/promo; BOMC alternate.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

Switching from mystery/intrigue to straightforward character novel, author Smith ( Gorky Park ) roughly outlines the development, under J. Robert Op penheimer, of the first nuclear weapon at Los Alamos, New Mexico. The im pending test blastwith its foregone historical conclusionserves as little more, however, than anchor and chro nological end frame to an otherwise aimless plot exhibiting muted prose, wistful philosophy, and nonexistent suspense. In central focus, yet not fully realized as character, stands Sergeant Joe Pena, an independent Pueblo Indi an and self-contained veteran of mili tary action (mostly as boxer and pia nist) in the Philippines who drives for "Oppy. " Joe's episodic antics (he likes to flout authority) juxtapose natural (i.e., Indian, the desert) and unnatural (i.e., U.S. Army, the bomb). Evocative at times, but largely unsympathetic and ultimately inadequate. BOMC alter nate. Rex E. Klett, Anson Cty. Lib., Wadesboro, N.C.
Copyright 1986 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Audio Cassette
• Publisher: Random House Audio (May 12, 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 039455857X
• ISBN-13: 978-0394558578
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 4.7 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 6.4 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.3 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #3,531,201 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Martin Cruz-Smith's novels include Stalin's Ghost, Gorky Park, Rose, December 6, Polar Star and Stallion Gate. A two-time winner of the Hammett Prize from the International Association of Crime Writers and a recipient of Britain's Golden Dagger Award, he lives in California.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Ten Of The Most Important Seconds In History!, June 25, 2003

By 

Jana L. Perskie "ceruleana" (New York, NY USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (HALL OF FAME REVIEWER)    (TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Stallion Gate (Mass Market Paperback)

"Stallion Gate" is a character novel, as opposed to the plot-driven suspense thrillers Martin Cruz Smith usually writes. It is also historical fiction, about one of the most extraordinary events precipitated by mankind, concluding with ten of the most important seconds in world history - the countdown for the test of the first nuclear weapon at Los Alamos, New Mexico.

The story opens at Los Alamos in December, 1944. U.S. Army Sergeant Joe Pena, a Pueblo Indian who had seen action in the Pacific, was specifically requested by the Project's lead physicist, Robert "Oppy" Oppenheimer, to join the select and top secret group, in New Mexico, as his personal driver and body guard. Oppy had known Joe in his boyhood, when he left New York, for health reasons, to spend the summer in New Mexico. It was one of the happiest times of his life. Young Joe taught him to ride...and years later had still retained Oppy's trust.

All the important historical characters are present at Los Alamos. Oppenheimer, his wife Kitty, scientist Klaus Fuchs, the Army general in charge of the project, Fermi, etc., are here. Anna Weiss, a fictional German Jewish mathematician, who had fled the Nazis, and been recruited by Oppy, is present. So is Joe's superior officer, Captain Augustino, an insane and bigoted intelligence officer with his own agenda. He believes Fuchs, Weiss and Openheimer are Soviet spies and has blackmailed Joe into informing on them...although Joe resists mightily and successfully, most of the time.

There is little suspense in this novel. After all, we know that the atomic bomb test was successful, as well as we know of the other bombs dropped on Hiroshima and Nagasaki by the Enola Gay. We know now who was a spy and who was unjustly accused. The storyline, is centered on Joe Pena, a complex, talented and very underestimated man. He disappointed his family, and had been disowned by his now deceased mother. Joe will never be a white man, nor a black man - although his ability to play jazz on the piano and understand the language of music like a native born to the country of chords and riffs, may have made his soul part Afro-American. He is really no longer a Native American either. He has seen and partaken of too much of the world to ever come home again. Pena fought like a hero on Baatan, and has fought heroically in the ring. Boxing was his sport and he was good. Throughout much of the book, he has no hopes for the future - no dreams. He observes everything and everyone, and comments occasionally with his sardonic humor. He thwarts Augustino's paranoid plots and assists a few renegade Indians, who try to work native magic to disrupt the explosion to come. He listens to Oppie who has lost weight and sleep with his anxiety over the Project. At one point Oppenheimer, while waiting for the rain to stop so he can meet the deadline for the test, says, "I am like the king of a rainy country, wealthy but helpless, young and ripe with death." Then, Joe, a lady's man - bedding officer's wives is forever getting him into trouble - falls in love with Anna Weiss. An opportunity to buy the Casa Manana, a nightclub in Santiago, NM, presents itself. Suddenly Pena dreams of owning the best jazz club outside of New York and Chicago...and the possibility of a future with Anna. The suspense does come Big Time, at the end of the novel, when all the forces at play, and the characters with their dillemas and choices, build toward their own personal climaxes - with an explosion that will impact the reader for some time to come.

If you are looking for an Arkady Renko thriller, this is probably not the book for you. There are pages, especially at the beginning, when the story plods along at an excruciating pace. I hung in there because I was caught up in the lyrical beauty of Cruz Smith's writing. His description of Joe on the piano, what and how he plays, is classic. "If blue skies were going to explode on them, they were ready, so he made the melody,'...bluebirds singin' a song' even as he brought the 'Moon' down a chromatic descent, a chord at a time. The tunes merged and split again, accelerating until keyboard and crowd swung between flight and plunge and he cued the horns, who stood and hit Charlie Parker riffs that settled the argument by demanding 'How High The Moon?' as if it were the sun." Can't help it. I'm a sucker for good prose. At one point Joe says, "Which is why I love music. You hit a C and it's a C and that's all it is. Like speaking clearly for the first time. Like being intelligent. A Mozart or an Art Tatum sits at the piano and picks out the undeniable truth."

Smith's descriptions of the desert's, (nature's), glory, is ironically juxtaposed with man's destruction and mutilation of the natural environment - so poignant and so gruesome. The radioactivity increasingly seeped into soil and water. Cows had to be checked with geiger counters before they could be slaughtered for consumption. At times, some of the animals' mutations were visible to the naked eye. Wild horses were machine-gunned from "B-29's." The author writes with a paintbrush. "The Hanging Garden got its name from the scarlet gillia, paintbrush and yarrow that had taken root and flourished in the turned soil of the hillside. The wildflowers were a brief, improbable splurge of colors - every shade of red, orange and madder - that turned and waved in any breeze crossing the dun drabness of the mesa."

Lastly, Joe Pena is as strong and developed a character as Arkady Renko. I enjoyed every minute I read about him, and he will stay in my mind as a wonderful anti-hero of his time. J. Kraus

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars a book that you don't expect, March 19, 1997

By A Customer

This review is from: Stallion Gate (Mass Market Paperback)

Stallion Gate takes myriad elements- the Native American experience, be-bop jazz, boxing, the Manhattan Project and pottery- and melds them into a story that lives and breathes on its own. The characters are not only at odds with each other, but with themselves. While not Smith's best work, this is a clear example of why he is one of the finest and most versatile writers alive today

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Cruz's best character, October 15, 1998

By 

[e-mail] (Greenbrae CA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Stallion Gate (Hardcover)

Martin Cruz Smith's best work. Although not as well known or recieved as the Gorky Park series I found this his most intresting stoy. I think Joe is his best anti-hero ever. More unique, with more depth than Arkady Renko or Roman Grey.