Tales from the Town of Widows [Hardcover]

James Canon (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: January 2, 2007

In the small Colombian mountain village of Mariquita, a band of guerrillas storms in to protest the country's ruling government. They arrive with propaganda and guns, and when they depart they have forcibly recruited all the town's men, leaving behind only a few—the priest and a young, fair-skinned boy disguised as a little girl.

In their wake, Mariquita becomes a sinking wasteland filled with women who quickly resign themselves to food shortages, littered streets, and mourning. Without men, life is hopeless, and getting along, nearly impossible. But, Rosalba viuda de Patiño, wife of the former police sergeant, sees a different fate for the town of widows. She declares herself magistrate and promises to instill law and order while restoring the failing economy and infrastructure. Reluctantly, the women agree to join forces. A utopia emerges, one that ironically resembles the ideal society the guerrilla group claims to promote.

Deft, rich, and darkly humorous, Tales from the Town of Widows is a captivating exploration of gender and sexuality that uses the ongoing conflict in Colombia as a backdrop. It presents a fascinating portrait of ill-fated wives and the war that helped them build a peaceful, equality-based society.

Exquisitely wrought, remarkably original, James Cañón's stunning debut marks the arrival of an unforgettable new literary talent.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

On November 15, 1992, the men of the tiny Colombian town of Mariquita are forced by guerillas to join or die on the spot, which some do. The town's women enter a particularly grievous widowhood. Chapters covering the years that follow chronicle the town's decay and introduce women struggling to survive without men and without meaningful government. Cleotilde Guarnizo, a traveler seeking respite, is hired to be the schoolteacher. Dona Emilia laments the loss of clients for her brothel. Magnolia Morales, meanwhile, forms a group devoted to reminiscing about the men, which becomes a "magical whorehouse," where lonely women seduce men from neighboring Honda before they reach Dona Emilia's. After a storm washes away the access road leading to the village, the citizens no longer have contact with the outside world, and their haphazard magistrate Rosalba introduces the "Procreation Campaign," where 29 women have sexual relations with the lascivious priest (who turns out to be sterile). Throughout the narrative are short, first-person testimonies from the men, detailing their exploits (which sadden some while making others rejoice). Although Cañón, making his debut, crafts characters that shine, the book plods, only picking up speed when the women make a final attempt at uniting and reorganizing their community. (Jan.)
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From School Library Journal

Adult/High School—In this thought-provoking Latin-American fable, the Colombia countryside has been devastated by 40 years of civil war. Leftist guerrillas, rightist paramilitaries, and government soldiers come spouting different political slogans, but leave indistinguishable horror in their wake. In the village of Mariquita, soldiers arrive to demand volunteers; when none are forthcoming, they kill or kidnap the men and traumatize the women and children. Bereft, the women flounder at first; old rivalries are indulged, the town's infrastructure deteriorates, and Mariquita is increasingly cut off from the outside world. The inhabitants are often exasperating, but their postapocalyptic yet nonviolent village proves to be a vivid setting for human nature to be revealed and culture reinvented. Ultimately they create a way of life suited to their resources and their female realities, and it is a delight to see this process unfold. The women's stories (and those of the few remaining males, all with unforgettable stories of their own) have the flavor of folktales—tragic, funny, rich, and magical. In briefer alternating episodes, men's stories of their experiences in the war are related in starkly realistic, intense fashion. The theme of a world in which women and men are separated and pursue divergent paths is always intriguing, and has been explored by a number of fine writers in science fiction, fantasy, polemic, and utopian modes. This title stands among the best of them.—Christine C. Menefee, formerly at Fairfax County Public Library, VA
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Harper; 1ST edition (January 2, 2007)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0061140384
• ISBN-13: 978-0061140389
• Product Dimensions: 9.2 x 6.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,515,001 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

James was born and raised in Colombia. After majoring in Advertising in Bogota, he moved to New York to study English. He received his MFA in Creative Writing from Columbia University.
His debut novel, Tales from the Town of Widows & Chronicles from the Land of Men, has been published in over twenty countries. It won Le Prix du Premier Roman Etranger 2008 (Best First Foreign Novel Prize) and Le Prix des Lecteurs Vincennes 2008. The American School Library Journal chose it as one of the "Ten Best Adult Books of the year for HS students," and it was a finalist for both the 2008 Edmund White Fiction Award, and a 2008 Lambda Literary Award for Best Debut Fiction.
James is the recipient of the Henfield Prize for Excellence in Fiction, a fellowship in fiction from the New York Foundation for the Arts, and awards from the Queens Council on the Arts, the New York Urban Artist Initiative, and the U.S. National Hispanic Foundation for the Arts. He's currently at work on a new novel.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A bold debut from a fresh literary talent!, January 18, 2007

By 

Jayme L. Mcdaniel (Los Angeles, CA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Tales from the Town of Widows (Hardcover)

In the tradition of Laura Esquivel's LIKE WATER FOR CHOCOALTE this stunning debut novel relies on delicious doses of magical realism to entrance the reader into the extraordinary realm of Maraquita, Columbia, a hamlet reborn with visionary ideas of social, political and environmental responsibilites. I became hypnotized with the introduction of these abandonded women whom are forced to re-invent themselves and their society. Employing humor, despair and sometimes shock these tales intoxicate and inspire!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars not exactly a gay book but......, May 16, 2008

By 

B.A. Wall "reads a lot" (San Francisco) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Tales from the Town of Widows: A Novel (Paperback)

Okay so I saw this book was nominated for a number of gay male book awards and was intrigued as the description says nothing about it being a gay novel, and rightly so, it's not really. I would say it's more of a feminist utopia written by a gay man.

The book is a collection of stories about the women left from a town where all the men were either kidnapped or killed by guerrillas. Interspersed between these stories are short snippets, usually 2 or 3 pages at most, of interviews with guerrillas some of whom where from this town.

As for the gay stuff, there are two chapters devoted to "the other widows", both gay men. One who hid by pretending to be a girl, and still living as a girl, the other who just happened to be at an outlying farm when the guerrillas came to town. Also towards the end of the book some of the women begin to express their love for each other, both physically and emotionally. Most of the book, however, concerns the lives of the women left behind and how they pick themselves up and create a life and town out of the devastation of their consequences.

From here I could go on a tangent about why books with minor or secondary gay content get nominated for gay specific awards when the majority of the book is not gay, but I won't it would take too much time. As for the book, it is well-written and it's obvious the author has talent and has been schooled in the art of writing. Some parts are a little slow and the book drags a bit in the middle, but it does offer an arresting look at the lives of people who live in a country constantly torn by internal strife and warfare written by an emerging new writer.

If you are looking for that kind of story this is the book for you, if you are looking for a gay novel, look elsewhere.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A stunning & wholly original debut, August 12, 2007

By 

Hillary Jordan "scribblegirl" (New York, USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Tales from the Town of Widows (Hardcover)

Tales from the Town of Widows and Chronicles from the Land of Men is a feast for anyone who relishes beautiful, intelligent writing infused with humor and humanity.
Set against the backdrop of the Colombian civil war, it tells the story of a group of women living in a remote mountain village who are forced to fend for themselves after a band of Communist guerrillas descends on the village and forcibly recruits all the men, killing those who resist and leading the others away to fight for their cause. The women and children who are left behind must overcome their grief, fear, ignorance and passivity in order to survive and build a new society of their own on the patriarchal rubble of the old.
The book embodies many contradictions without ever pulling at the seams. It is at once lyrical and brutal, subversive and idealistic, satirical and affecting, wickedly funny and profoundly sad. It tackles big issues--religion, politics, sexual politics--but its real power lies in the poignant and often comic humanity of its characters, with their hairy, muscular legs and rectangular bodies, their migrating warts and luxurious mustaches. And those are just the women: the widows, spinsters, prostitutes and virgins who inhabit the town of Mariquita. We are also given, in journalistic chronicles at the end of each chapter, brief and often shocking glimpses of the men and boys doomed to fight in the war, and the civilians caught up in its senseless violence.
The book begins in 1992 and ends, 16 years later, in 1992. (Among the many innovations the women conceive is the concept of female time, which is based on the menstrual cycle and runs backwards. They also end up rejecting religion, making clothing optional and deciding that heterosexuality is over-rated.) Each chapter focuses on a particular woman: Doña Emilia, the madam of the village's whorehouse, who loses all her customers when the men are taken away; Cleotilde Guarnizo, the mannish, mustached schoolteacher with the stomping gait and mysterious past; Francisca viuda de Gómez, the widow who finds a fortune under her bed; Julia Morales, born Julio, whose mother dresses him as a girl to hide him from the guerrillas and who grows up to become the town beauty. But the main character, the unifying force of the village and of the book, is Rosalba viuda de Patiño, the widow of the town's police sergeant. Soon after the men are taken away, Rosalba is appointed Magistrate by a passing government soldier. It falls on her, an uneducated housewife with no leadership experience, to rouse the women from their grief and apathy and restore order, prosperity and hope to the village -- a seemingly impossible task that requires all her ingenuity and determination.
In the end, Rosalba and the other villagers create a new society based on the values of women: harmony, cooperation and respect for every individual, whether female or male, gay or straight, buck naked or wearing a red polka dot dress that's tight in all the right places. And when some of the village's men come home after their 16-year absence and try to reclaim their power and male prerogatives, things get really interesting...