Guest Review by Irene Wanner

Fiction
Randy Lopez Goes Home
By Rudolofo Anaya
University of Oklahoma Press
159 pages, hardcover, $19.95

Although prolific Chicano writer Rudolfo Anaya is best known for his classic novel, Bless Me, Ultima, which won the prestigious Premio Quinto Sol Award in 1972, he has also written children’s and adult short fiction, folktales, mysteries, travel stories, essays, and verse. He lives in Albuquerque now but was born in east-central New Mexico, where he grew up in a Spanish-speaking family whose traditional tales provided what would become a lifetime treasury from which to draw inspiration for his own writing.

Anaya’s new book, Randy Lopez Goes Home, makes excellent use of this rich heritage, mixing magic realism—there’s a talking dog, Oso, for instance, as well as many ghosts and spirits such as La Muerte and the Devil—with a homecoming theme reminiscent of Homer’s epic poem, The Odyssey.

The story opens on Día de los Muertos (Day of the Dead) when Randy returns to the real-life northern New Mexico village of Agua Bendita (blessed water). As a young man, he left home in search of opportunity, held many jobs, studied at night school, and wrote a book, My Life Among the Gringos.

But something was always missing: the love of his life, the beautiful Sofia, the memory of whom remained fresh in his heart while he was away.
Like Odysseus, whom no one (but his old dog and a slave) recognized when he returns home after the Trojan War and a decade-long journey, no one remembers Randy as he arrives on a borrowed, swayback mare. A couple of cowboys invite him into the cantina for beers. He joins them briefly, then explains he must find Sofia. But she’s a witch, they say; she lives on the far side of the river, a “land of dead Aztecs and old desert prophets.” In his romantic and spiritual quest, Randy meets the Agua Bendita locals one by one, chapter by chapter, hoping to be recognized and accepted.

Those familiar with Anaya’s works will recognize his protagonist’s concerns for living a respectful, useful life. “I hope,” Anaya states in an interview provided by the publisher, that “this story helps others renew their faith in the transformative powers of the soul.”

Randy’s journey to find his place in such a mystical setting will appeal to fans of Southwest literature.

Writer and editor Irene Wanner lives in the Jeméz Mountains.

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Book Briefs by Ashley M. Biggers

Poetry
Breaking Bread with the Darkness: Book 1, The Esai Poems
By Jimmy Santiago Baca, Foreword by Carolyn Forché
Sherman Asher Publishing
112 pages, paperback, $12.95

In the first of four titles in the Breaking Bread with the Darkness series, dedicated to each of his children, New Mexico poet Jimmy Santiago Baca celebrates his relationship with his son, Esai. Baca often writes about his experiences in The System—from orphanages to a juvenile detention center to a maximum-security prison in Arizona, where he encountered beatings, shock therapy, abandonment, and stabbings. Reading about these hardships in his award–winning memoir A Place to Stand and his collections of poetry can be brutal—honest and vital, but brutal.

In contrast, Baca’s tone here is hopeful, urgent, and loving without being overly sentimental. These works are not only a celebration of the parent/child bond, but also a collection of societal lessons for Esai and for all of us. As Carolyn Forché observes in the foreword, “Jimmy Santiago Baca, the father and poet, has written a rare book for the new generation. This book describes the world as it is, and is rarely described. This is poetry taking all the right chances for all the right reasons at a very precarious time. A poetry of intelligence, judgment, and love was never more necessary.”

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Travel
Route 66: traveler's Guide and Roadside Companion (4th Edition)
By Tom Snyder
St. Martin's Griffin
224 pages, paperback, $13.99

U.S. Highway 66, notes guidebook author Tom Snyder, was more than just a method of transport. “For the millions who traveled her (and the millions more who want to), the road was transformed from a concrete thoroughfare into a national symbol: a vital life-sign for us all. A pathway to better times—seldom found, but no less cherished. Route 66 came to represent not only who we were as a people, but who we knew we could be.”

Those wishing to capture this nostalgic promise by taking a road trip should pick up this handy guide. The reference will lead you along the path all the way from Illinois—through New Mexico—to California. In the tradition of Jack D. Rittenhouse’s A Guide Book to Highway 66 (1946; reprinted by University of New Mexico Press in 1989), the original guide to the Mother Road, this one offers turn-by-turn directions for following the road—sometimes it is necessary to divert from the original one. The “Roadside Companion” section offers delightful essays about regional history to accompany the service-oriented beginning to the guide. This new edition, released more than 20 years after the original, offers up-to-date routings, new maps, and revised information on roadside attractions. Author Snyder was the founder and president of the now-defunct
Route 66 Association.

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History/Fiction
Elvis Romero and Fiesta de Santa Fe: Featuring Zozobra's Great Escape
By Andrew Leo Lovato
Museum of New Mexico Press
76 pages, paper-over-board, $22.50

Santa Fean Andrew Leo Lovato sets the stage for his fanciful tale, Zozobra’s Great Escape, with an introduction that recalls his real-life childhood attending Fiesta de Santa Fe. The Fiesta has been held for around 300 years and now includes the Historical/Hysterical Parade, the Desfile de los Niños (Children’s Pet Parade), as well as novenas and Fiesta Masses; Lovato details the history of this celebration in the conclusion to the book.

The gem of this title, however, is the Huck Finn–inspired tale of Elvis Romero and Pepa, in which the 10-year-old cousins hatch a plan to rescue Zozobra—a 40-foot-tall marionette also known as Old Man Gloom—from being burned in effigy during Fiesta. This delightful story, told in the magical-realism style, brings to life the wonder that the Fiesta celebrations sometimes inspire in all of us. The large-format book also includes 20 historic photographs of Fiesta celebrations (see one of them on page 8), including those of the De Vargas pageant, costumed Spanish dancers, and a diminutive Zozobra. This is a title that belongs on every Santa Fean’s and Fiesta fan’s bookshelf.

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History
In Search of Domínguez & Escalante: Photographing the 1776 Spanish
Expedition through the Southwest
By Greg Mac Gregor and Siegried Halus
Museum of New Mexico Press
232 pages, hardcover, $50

In 1776, Franciscan friars Atanasio Domínguez and Silvestre Vélez de Escalante set out on an expedition from Santa Fe to Monterey, California, that historians widely acknowledge for the quality of its documentation of the land and the Native peoples. In recent years, Santa Fe photographers Greg Mac Gregor and Siegfried Halus set out to retrace this 1,800-mile journey, document the places and people they encountered, and reflect on the original expedition’s challenges and accomplishments.                                   

This handsome coffee-table book begins with historical context and essays from the photographers about their approach. Then, using ample excerpts from Escalante’s journals and their own observations, they recount their circumnavigation of the Four Corners area. Their journey through New Mexico takes them past a penitente morada in Abiquiú, abandoned buildings in Tierra Amarilla, and the Isleta and Laguna Pueblo reservations—all of which they capture in elegant black-and-white photography that lends quiet grandeur even to decrepit sights along their route. This is history at its best: In Search of Domínguez & Escalante thoughtfully revisits a little-known aspect of the past with a deep consideration for how history has affected places and people today.

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Art
Qunicy Tahoma: The Life and Legacy of a Navajo Artist
By Charnell Havens, & Vera Marie Badertscher
Schiffer Publishing
256 pages, hardcover, $50

This biography charts the progress of painter Quincy Tahoma (1917-1956) from his early life near Tuba City, Arizona, on the Navajo Nation, through his discovery of art in Dorothy Dunn’s Santa Fe Indian School studio, to his meteoric rise in the Santa Fe art scene. Tahoma’s greatest achievement was earning the prestigious Philbrook prize, awarded by the Philbrook Museum of Art in Tulsa, Oklahoma, for In the Days of Plenty (1946). More than 250 full-color images of Tahoma’s work depict his transformation as an artist—from his school-day sketches to the refined, animated paintings of buffalo hunts, tribal traditions, and horses that defined his later work. Among the best artists of his generation, Tahoma also struggled with alcoholism, which struck him down as his career was flourishing. This is a readable and well-researched biography that enthusiasts of Native art will relish.

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Discover more Southwest books in our archives.