Guest Review by Irene Wanner

Architecture
The Santa Fe House: Historic Residences, Enchanting Adobes, and Romantic Revivals
By Margaret Moore Booker
Rizzoli
280 pages, hardcover, $29.95

246 pages, hardcover, $50
When Don Pedro de Peralta established the Spanish colony of New Mexico below the Sangre de Cristo Mountains, writes Santa Fe resident and architectural historian Margaret Moore Booker in this beautiful new book, that early royal governor of New Mexico chose his seat based on location, location, location: The area had arable land near water, abundant game and forests, and trails converging from many directions. Along with Florida’s St. Augustine, Santa Fe was one of the first European settlements in what would eventually become the United States.

Surprisingly, Booker notes, less is known about the Spanish colonists’ houses here than about the Native American dwellings that predated them. But her extensive research and the book’s copious archival illustrations, and the excellent images by local photographer Steve Larese, do much to fill this gap, showing how the first settlers, using materials provided by the land, incorporated into their homes such Indian-pueblo features as flat roofs, vigas and latillas, and wide walls of adobe or stone.

As Booker describes, the urban evolution brought things full circle here. In 1846, when the U.S. annexed New Mexico, formerly part of Mexico, the “Anglo-Americans brought new ideas, technology, and goods to the region” via the Santa Fe Trail. The town became a governmental, military, and retail center. Its rundown adobes with flat, leaky roofs—which reminded many of prairie-dog towns—no longer suited changing tastes. Instead, window glass, bricks, and milled lumber led to such elements as sloping roofs, pediments, cornices, and columns, and developed into what is now called Territorial style.

When the railroad came to Santa Fe, in 1880, even more materials and ideas arrived from the East Coast. Shingles and machine-made, cast-iron ornaments were perfect for the elaborate Victorian, Italianate, and French Empire styles. But these costly, fussy structures eventually fell out of favor themselves, to be replaced, in the early 1900s, by California’s Spanish Colonial Mission style.

The fad for bungalows with arches, unadorned stucco walls, red-tile roofs, brick accents, and plain, functional interiors with fireplaces survived until the 1930s, but already the “New-Old” style was gaining ground. Returning in force were Spanish- and Mexican-era earth-toned buildings with flat roofs, vigas, canales, corbels, and portals; gone were bright colors, neoclassical columns, bay windows, and picket fences.

Architects, Santa Fe history buffs, and anyone seeking information about the city’s architectural development will enjoy this book. Although a city map and more interior shots to complement the text would have been welcome, Booker’s writing is engaging and authoritative. Her inclusions of a selected bibliography, detailed endnotes, and a comprehensive index make The Santa Fe House a pleasure for casual reading as well as a useful research tool.

Irene Wanner is a writer, editor, and book reviewer who lives near Jemez Pueblo.

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Book Briefs by Ashley M. Biggers

Poetry/Short Story
In the Presence of the Sun: Stories and Poems, 1961–1991
By N. Scott Momaday
University of New Mexico Press
169 pages, paperback, $18.95

Best known for his novel House Made of Dawn, for which he won the 1969 Pulitzer Prize for Fiction, Kiowa-Cherokee writer N. Scott Momaday brings us a collection that represents 30 years of reflections on his heritage and life, first published in 1993 by St. Martin’s Press, and is now being reprinted by University of New Mexico Press. From poems about sacred animals to creation stories, his work evokes the spare beauty and simple truths of the Native American oral tradition. He notes the connection himself: “Poetry is a very old and elemental expression, as venerable as song and prayer. . . . In poetry we address ourselves really, without pretension or deceit, without the intervention of interest.” Of particular note are 16 prose pieces here about Plains Indian shields. An integral part of the Plains culture, the shield is a source of protection and identity that becomes a powerful symbol in itself. In his introduction to the series, Momaday observes, “The shield is involved in story. The shield is its own story. When the shield is made visible it means: Here is the story. Enter into it and be created. The story tells of your real being.” Sometimes described as one of the most distinguished artists of our time, Momaday once again establishes himself as an agile creative spirit who offers unrivaled perspectives.

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Children's
The Dog who Loved Tortillas/La Perrita que le Encantaban Las Tortillas
By Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Illustrated by Geronimo Garcia
Cinco Puntos Press
40 pages, hardback, $17.95

In The Dog Who Loved Tortillas, young Diego and his sister, Gabriela, long for a puppy of their own. As Gabriela observes, “People who had dogs were always happy. They smiled more than regular people.” Their parents agree to adopt a new member of the family, but make them share the spotted pooch, Sophie. Training Sophie is more work than the children expected, but they soon discover that she’ll do just about anything for tortillas hot off their mother’s comal. When Sophie suddenly falls ill, the children discover to whom she truly belongs. To illustrate this bilingual edition, artist Geronimo Garcia molded lively clay sculptures (picture claymation figures). Author Benjamin Alire Sáenz grew up in Picacho; this amusing, heartfelt story is the second in his Little Diego series of children’s books, following A Gift from Papá Diego/Un regalo de Papá Diego (Cinco Puntos Press, 1998). Recommended for children ages two to eight.

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Young Adult
Rosetta Stones
By Catherine Parra Dix
Central Avenue Press
213 pages, paperback, $14.95

Four friends depart their small hometown in southern New Mexico to celebrate their traditional senior ditch day in the Gila area. Only days away from graduating from high school, their minds burst with thoughts of young love and hopes for the future—they never suspect that a psychopathic killer lurking in the wilderness has different plans for them. After witnessing a terrible crime, the friends unite to protect each other from the murderer, who is still on the loose, to survive the tragic loss that strikes their ranks, and to reconcile their expectations with the life-changing experiences and personal revelations they now encounter. The fast-paced plot drives this story forward, but the cast of complex, dynamic characters makes this coming-of-age tale engaging and memorable. Author Catherine Parra Dix grew up in Deming and graduated from New Mexico State University; in her dialogue, she well captures the amazing wit, sarcasm, and vulnerability of her teenage heroes. Rosetta Stones won a 2009 New Mexico Book Award for Best First Book. Although young-adult books are usually recommended for readers as young as 12, parents should note that Rosetta Stones includes some content that may be better suited for older readers.

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Poetry
How Shadows are Bundled
By Anne Valley-Fox
University of New Mexico Press
140 pages, hardcover, $21.95

In How Shadows Are Bundled, poet Anne Valley-Fox explores what psychiatrist Carl G. Jung called the “shadow” aspect of the human psyche—those darker, often repressed aspects of ourselves. Though the poems are at times glum, Valley-Fox’s compass often points a way out of those shadows, as in “Three Martinis”: “Character / determines fate, yet in the realm of behavior, substitutes / are sometimes accepted—a tigress held in captivity nurses / a piglet . . . the third martini delivers you over the falls / in a barrel . . . a breakthrough may still be possible.”

Rather than providing snapshots of life, some poems are narratives: “Imagine a Woman” reveals the arc of one woman’s life, and “Unlike Alice (Whose Tumble Is Wondrous)” unfolds another character’s struggles: “Awake when she sleeps and vice versa / her body with its clandestine agenda slides into / the dark shape of a woman.” The poems lope from politics to family travails, from history to aging, and from sexuality to the works of other writers, all the while revealing more about human nature and our deepest desires.

In his foreword, V.B. Price observes, “Poets can sometimes become hands in the dark for their readers during times of crisis, loneliness, or confusion. If you are looking for a poet to befriend you with her work, Anne Valley-Fox . . . can become that rare friend on the page who is at once a wise guide and a bracing companion who always takes your side.” Price is the editor of UNM Press’s Mary Burritt Christiansen Poetry series, of which this book is the most recent installment. The series has recognized other collections of poems that capture Southwestern life, such as Levi Romero’s A Poetry of Remembrance: New and Rejected Works.

 

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Mystery
Girl with a Skirt of Stars
By Jennifer Kitchell
Pronghorn Press
348 pages, paperback, $19.95

In the tradition of Tony Hillerman, author Jennifer Kitchell evokes in her first novel the stunning landscape of the Navajo Nation and the mystique of Navajo culture. At the heart of the story is Lilli Chischilly, a Navajo woman who, with her legal skills, straddles the worlds of the Diné and the Bilagáana (white people). In this tightly woven story Lilli must unravel several mysteries, including the haunting death of a Navajo man ritually murdered, whose body she discovers in the hoodoos of the Bisti, and her relationship with a former love who has just returned to the reservation. All the while, she travels down the Colorado River as a guide for the U.S. President-Elect, whose own agenda involves the controversial issue of water rights. A determined killer wants the future president dead, and Lilli may be floating into that trap right along with him. Kitchell’s mystery often lacks Hillerman’s clarity of prose, but
fans of his brand of writing will find a protagonist worth rooting for and a fast-paced tale that, at times, echoes that icon at his best.

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