Great Books About New Mexico?

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Permalink Reply by Stephen CM on October 7, 2008 at 1:26pm

I really loved Red Sky at Morning. Aldous Huxley's Brave New World has a good bit about Taos in it, and So Far From God by Ana Castillo is an entertaining story that takes place in Tome. I've been wanting to read The Myth of Santa Fe, and Bless Me Ultima by Rudolfo Anaya shows a neat part of northern NM culture. For kids' reading, try Joe Hayes. His stories are awesome, and you can (or at least used to be able to) buy tapes of him telling them. Another good fiction read is Jim Sagel's Tunomas Honey.

What else?

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Permalink Reply by BoogieMama on March 30, 2009 at 10:27am

Can we add all the other Jim Sagel books, essays, short stories & poetry, ever? He was truly one of the great literary lights here, I still get mad about him hanging himself. DFW too. What is it with these brilliant writers and hanging? At any rate... I would start with El Queso Santo/ The Holy Cheese and Dancing to Pay the Light Bill. I find him laugh out-loud-and-can't-stop funny, which is rare for me.

I have been increasingly fascinated with the period of NM history when the Americans were first coming, and everything was in upheaval. Cornell University has digitized all the back numbers of Harpers, and if you do a search for New Mexico between say 1821-1860 you come up with all these crazy articles, from "wild west" stories (My Ride with Kit Carson) to descriptions of economics on the frontier, to stories about falling in love with a doe-eyed senorita. Warning: the cultural assumptions the writers make are at times stomach-churningly racist. Also in that category is Along the Santa Fe Trail and into Mexico, the diary of Susan Magoffin, a young bride traveling to her new home with her husband (part of the influential Magoffin family of traders), in the wake of the Army of the West. Her diary flips between minute descriptions of clothes and cosmetics to agonizing about the war, as battles explode south of the, and rebellion rages behind them.

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Permalink Reply by cc on March 30, 2009 at 12:01pm

BoogieMama, have you read Kate Horsley's Crazy Woman yet? Her novel is right in there with what you are talking about. Here are the blurbs from its cover:

'Captivity narratives— part history, part autobiography, part erotic fantasy— have been one of the most enduring genres of American letters. The idea of Christian women kidnapped by ‘savage’ red men fires the imagination. But among those narratives there are also stories of captives who preferred their captors and mourned their return to their families. Curious stories, they sometimes seem incomprehensible, beyond credulity. Such women must have been ‘deranged’ by their experiences. Crazy Woman by Kate Horsley is the story of a woman whose ‘captivity’ is divided equally between her life with her own people and life among the Indians. The story is told with freshness and imagination. CRAZY WOMAN is sane, and shrewd, and funny.'
— Lillian Schlissel Director of American Studies, Brooklyn College author of Women’s Diaries of the Westward Journey

'Set in the nineteenth-century frontier, Kate Horsley's first novel is about a young, Christian-raised girl who is captured by a band of Apaches after leaving her Presbyterian minister husband for dead. Near starvation as an Apache slave, the book relates how Sara survives, virtually reinventing herself as she sheds the Christianity of her former life, becoming aware, and eventually adopting the life-view and spirituality of her captors. In the process, she grows into womanhood mixing aspects of both cultures that work for her situation. She turns into a powerful—if not quirky—woman and the story unfolds in a refreshing celebration of American individualism . . . Written with compassion and humor, the author weaves the beautiful, the brutal and the benign in a delicate imagery that encompasses the practical, the mystical and the erotic. A gem of a book that should enjoy a wide readership.
—R. Gail Miller

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Permalink Reply by Ron Da Bomb on October 7, 2008 at 1:45pm

Here are a couple on my list...

- Jimmy Santiago Baca, Martin & Meditations on the South Valley
- Jimmy Santiago Baca, Black Mesa Poems
- John Nichols, The Milagro Beanfield War
- Hillerman - various
- Martin Cruz Smith, Stallion Gate

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Permalink Reply by Ron Da Bomb on October 7, 2008 at 2:14pm

Oh, and I just finished 109 East Palace: Robert Oppenheimer and the Secret City of Los Alamos on recommendation by Barelas Babe. Written from an interesting perspective.

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Permalink Reply by Phil_0 on October 7, 2008 at 2:17pm

Don't forget Cormac McCarthy...Cities of the Plain and The Crossing both take place in southern New Mexico and the Mexican borderlands. Like others, I'm also a big fan of John Nichols, though The Milagro Beanfield War trumps his other stuff.

I've never 100% liked Rudolfo Anaya, but both Bless Me, Ultima and Alburquerque are good introductions to many aspects of New Mexico culture that newcomers might miss.

He was a great archaeologist and historian, but Adolph Bandelier's The Delight Makers is an incredibly boring novel. Don't be tempted.

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Permalink Reply by Alexis on October 7, 2008 at 4:10pm

I loved Child of a Rainless Year by Albuquerque author Jane Lindskold. The books is based in Las Vegas, NM and has some of the most gorgeous imagery I've ever encountered. It's part magical realism, part fantasy, part ghost story. I adored it.

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Permalink Reply by Dan Ehrig on October 9, 2008 at 10:51am

I'm currently in the middle of:

Blood and Thunder: The Epic Story of Kit Carson and the Conquest of.... It focuses not only on Carson & various American commanders but on the Navajo and Mexican inhabitants of NM around the time of the Mexican-American war. Its fascinating so far. The first chapter about the Navajo made me take a weekend visit to Mount Taylor (or as the book translates the Navajo word for it, "Blue Bead Mountain.")

Later in the book there's chapters about NM in the Civil War (including the Battle of Glorieta). There are parts in it about California but its mostly focused on NM.

Edit: it turns out Sophie already has a discussion topic about this book here.

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Permalink Reply by NMBeek on October 10, 2008 at 9:30am

Great River and Lamy of Santa Fe are both by Paul Horgan are excellent histories, in the first case, of the State in general and in the second, Archbisop Lamy, and his impact on the Santa Fe area and the State overall.

I certainly agree with the many others mentioned.

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Permalink Reply by Kenny on October 10, 2008 at 9:59am

William J. Buchanan wrote a few books about places and events in New Mexico. Some are available through UNM Press. "Running Toward the Light", "A Shining Season", and "El Diablo" are some that I recall.

"William J. Buchanan (1926-2005) served as adjunct professor of creative writing at UNM for eight years. He is the author of six books, three of which have been made into movies."

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Permalink Reply by cc on December 1, 2008 at 9:51pm

my fave fiction are:
Lesley Poling Kempes's CANYON OF REMEMBERING; CRAZY WOMAN and A KILLING IN NEW TOWN by Kate Horsley; SOFIA Poems by Joan Logghe; THE WIND LEAVES NO SHADOW by Ruth Laughlin___;
fave non-fiction:
SHINING RIVER, PRECIOUS LAND by Kit Sargent & ___ oral history from the north valley ; VALLEY OF SHINING STONE by Lesley Poling-Kempes; I RETURNED AND SAW UNDER THE SUN: PADRE MARTINEZ OF TAOS by E. A. Mares

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Permalink Reply by Mary on April 27, 2009 at 10:59am

If you are interested in the 19th century, try The Wind Leaves No Shadow, it is a little melodramatic, but I enjoyed it. Anything written by Marc Simmons on New Mexico History is good. I really enjoy Judith Van Gieson's Claire Reynier mysteries. They take place in Albuquerque and the main character is a librarian at Zimmerman Library. John Nichol's trilogy is a must read also.

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