Books - March 2012

Gideon's Corpse
By Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child (Grand Central Publishing)

When interviewed years after scientists at Los Alamos National Laboratories conducted the first nuclear test, near Alamogordo, in 1945, project director J. Robert Oppenheimer recalled that a verse from the Bhagavad Gita—a sacred Hindu text that also influenced Mahatma Gandhi’s concept of selfless action—flashed across his mind as he watched the explosion: “Now I am become Death, destroyer of worlds . . .”

The same words might also be applied to the mind and motivation of Gideon Crew—nuclear physicist, former art thief, master of disguise, and protagonist of Gideon’s Corpse, the second installment in the newest series of thrillers co-written by Douglas Preston and Lincoln Child. The authors met when Child edited Preston’s first nonfiction book, in 1993. Since then, the two have continued to write both separately and together: Child has published seven solo books, Preston eleven; Gideon’s Corpse is the duo’s 17th collaboration.

Preston—who is or has been associated with PEN New Mexico as well as Santa Fe’s Laboratory of Anthropology and School for Advanced Research—first moved to the City Different in 1986. After returning to the East Coast for a time, he is once again a full-time resident of New Mexico. His familiarity with and love of the landscape of Northern New Mexico—especially the wilderness surrounding Los Alamos—figures strongly in Gideon’s Corpse.

Although the book begins and ends in the boardroom of Effective Engineering Solutions (EES), the shadowy private security contractor in the meatpacking district of Manhattan that employs Gideon as an operative, most of the action takes place in and around Santa Fe and Los Alamos.
Sneaker-and-jeans-clad Gideon and his buttoned-up, by-the-book FBI partner have 10 days to find a nuclear bomb assembled by a now-deceased lab colleague (and suspected member of an Islamist terrorist cell) before it explodes in Washington, D.C. But what the pair learn as they search for clues to the bomb’s location points to an even larger, more dangerous plot.

Who are the real terrorists, and what kind of catastrophic destruction do they have in mind? You’ll have to read the book to find out—an easy and enjoyable assignment.
Preston and Child deliver a tight, literate thriller complete with in-jokes and homages to other New Mexico authors. The writing is fast-paced and cinematic; from a chainsaw duel to an escape from underground lab tunnels dating back to the days of the Manhattan Project, to a nighttime horseback chase through the canyons of the Jemez Mountains, you can see and hear the action as you race through the text. (It’s no accident that Preston’s best-selling nonfiction book, The Monster of Florence, is currently under development as a major Hollywood movie.)

Patricia West-Barker is a regular contributor to New Mexico Magazine.

Book Briefs by Ashley M. Biggers

Caput Nili: How I Won the War and Lost My Taste for Oranges
By Lisa Gil with art by Kris Mills (West End Press)

Winner of a Literature Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts and one of the mavens of Albuquerque’s burgeoning performance-poetry scene, Lisa Gill shows remarkable bravery in her newest print collection, Caput Nili. She takes on the topics of mental and physical illness and domestic violence—all of which she has experienced herself.

One pivotal scene, to which she returns several times, marks the turning point of her battle with misdiagnosed mental illness, and sparks ruminations about the violence that men have enacted: She threatens to hold up an MRI clinic with a shotgun unless it conducts the proper tests to diagnose the ailment causing her numb legs.

Though she has been victimized, Gill refuses to be a victim. In “Interpersonal Arghing: an exploration of violence in adult life,” she acknowledges, “Survival is just the beginning,” and asserts, “I love life.” In this collection Gill takes a stand—not only against the injustices she’s experienced, but also in the name of the human spirit. 

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Working the Land: The Stories of Ranch and Farm Women in the Modern American West
By Sandra K. Schackel (University Press of Kansas)

Reflecting on her ties to her own family farm, author Sandra K. Schackel collects more than 40 oral histories from ranch women. Although western ranch and farm women have often been cast in a secondary role to their husbands, Schackel revels in the fact that these women have played a vital role in ranch life, and have thus helped define the American West. New Mexican women weigh in on the hardships endured and resourcefulness needed for the cowgirl life—from Patricia Chesser, of the Burnt Well Guest Ranch, near Roswell, to Rosalie Romero, of Chacón. This documentation of the lives of ranch women and the indispensable roles they play was long overdue.

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New Mexico: A Photographic Tribute
By John Annerino (Globe Pequot Press)

The photographer of more than 14 books of Southwestern images, John Annerino turns his attention to the Land of Enchantment’s epic landscapes in this handsome coffee-table book. He has compiled more than 50 images and paired each with a quotation from a notable author. Here’s D. H. Lawrence: “The lonely desert mesas stretched to a line of mountains etched on the stark blue horizon. . . . In the magnificent fierce morning of New Mexico one sprang awake, a new part of the soul woke up suddenly, and the old world gave way to a new.” Annerino himself brings fresh eyes to this collection of stunning images of buttes, ruins, and historic churches—many cast in golden and rosy sunset hues. Annerino captures the state in its most alluring lights.

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Sweeney
By Robert Julyan (University of New Mexico Press)

Best known for his essential book The Place Names of New Mexico, Robert Julyan turns his attention to fiction in this, his first novel. Once vibrant, the small New Mexico town of Sweeney has dwindled to population 856.Without any tourist draws, it is drying up before the residents’ eyes—until strange holes in the ground and a towering monolith appear overnight. Aliens, naked bull riders, and Native Americans (phony and real) all make appearances in this journey about survival and self-discovery. With his wry sense of humor, Julyan captures all the color and charm of small-town life.

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