Perdido

'Perdido' is a colorful tale of an Anglo construction worker struggling to fit in in a Northern New Mexico village. It is a passionate story, rich in the tales and oral traditions of the region. I wonder if it may be a bit autobiograghical.

The title means lost. A reader puts down the book not quite clear about who or what was lost or how, but feeling the title perfect. Like most good novels Perdido calls up other good, even great literature. Albert Camus' l'Etranger and Hemingway's "A Clean Well-Lighted Place" and OHara's Appointment in Samara echo in the chiseled, poetic prose and through the oblique character development. Like all good, even great literature, Perdido moves through several levels. There's a single man who's looking for attachment. The modest hero has and loses a place in the ancient community, a traditional adobe house, an image of the Virgen de Guadalupe, a promiscuous girlfriend, and a business partner who is a good friend powerless against culture. He's Anglo among Hispanos. The Hispanos--linked in complex, roiling families--deal with the present only through the rich, confusing past or pasts. But that's not a description to entice new readers for a novel that deserves to be read. There are other key elements: the naked young woman found hanging from the bridge twenty-years before and a former sheriff's deputy who is dying of cancer, whose secret is aired, and who knows how to get even. How can we discern America's heart at the close of our century? Perdido tells us to look to an isolated corner of northern New Mexico and think about the 18th century.

Tension is the word in this tale about a gringo in a largely Hispanic New Mexican locale, and the reader keeps waiting for the next shoe to drop. The trouble begins when this laid-back white man fails to mind his own affairs in a land where things just aren't done that way. Certain of the natives would have him pay for this transgression. The book is full of wonderful, realistic dialogue placed before an elegantly limned backdrop of this tough western landscape. One interesting facet is the way the author uses his construction experience and knowledge to describe various dillapidated buildings--very interesting, and he notices things a layman might not notice in a dozen years, which helps add to the overall realism of this novel. And if any male reader doesn't fall for his Lisa Segura, the gringo's tough, vibrant love interest, he is made of the stuff of Gunga Din.

This is a beautiful novel with depth of feeling and strong characters. It makes the story of a white man settling among the Hispanics in a little town of New Mexico absolutely believable and brings it to life.It shows us a side of our country that is rarely explained so well. And it is written with great compassion.