The gentle-hearted Flavio Montoya returns,now as the aged scion of his family, still tendinghis sister Ramona’s fields and wondering how allof his family could have died before him. Whenthe mountains surrounding Guadalupe erupt inflames, the history of the village seems to be setloose in the smoke. The dead arrive and the silentspeak. When Flavio is accused of starting the firethat quickly threatens to consume the village, thedisaster becomes one more mystery that he mustfold into his own memory, though he cannot quiteunderstand any of it.A Santo in the Image of Cristóbal García is abeautiful, funny, even epic tale of how all history isfinally personal.
Madewell Brown walked into the village on a hot, dry day in 1946. A solitary black man with one arm longer than the other, he had never found a place for himself. Never, that is, until he had painted his own history on the interior walls of his adobe house in Guadalupe.Fifty years later, Will Sawyer’s truck runs out of gas, and as he walks that same long road back into town he knows it’s best to keep his eyes on the ground. But he doesn’t understand the town’s long history of displacement or the difficulty of truly fitting in there, until he hears the story of the dead girl found hanging from Las Manos Bridge.In Perdido, Rick Collignon returns to the same magical village he first introduced in The Journal of Antonio Montoya.In Perdido, Collignon returns to the same magical town he first introduced in The Journal of Antonio Montoya. Once again mixing present and past, living and dead, he delivers a forthright and unflinching examination of race, belonging, and identity. With this novel, Collignon shows that a powerful new voice in American fiction has arrived.
As recorded in Rick Collignon’s second novel,Perdido, a tall black man with one arm longer thanthe other walked into Guadalupe, New Mexico onemorning about 50 years ago, stayed pretty muchto himself for seven years, and then walked backout of town. No one knew who he was or whatbecame of him.Now, as his last act, an old man named RuffinoTrujillo tells his grown son Cipriano a story aboutwhat became of the black man. After Ruffino’sdeath, Cipriano discovers an old canvas bagbearing the name of Madewell Brown. Inside area hand-carved doll, an old blanket, an unlabeledphoto of a Negro League baseball team, and asmall, yellowing envelope that was never posted.Thinking it the least he can do, Cipriano mails theletter. When it arrives in Cairo, Illinois, it comesinto the hands of a young woman named Rachael,who believes it is from her lost grandfather. Shebelieves this because of all that she’s been told bythe raggedy old man who taught her everything:Obie Poole, who was Madewell’s friend and theorphaned Rachael’s anchor, the man who gives thiseloquent novel its authentic sense of history lived.Drawn magically forward on Rick Collignon’sdirect and haunting prose, we follow Rachael toGuadalupe in search of her own identity and wewatch as Cipriano tries to make sense of the storyhis father told him about a dead man who didn’tbelong there.This fourth installment in Collignon’s belovedGuadalupe series is as magical as its predecessors,as emotionally honest, as surprising — and it firmlyestablishes Rick Collignon as a master Americanstoryteller.
We are proud to reintroduce the classic first novel by the author of Madewell Brown.When little José Montoya’s parents are killed one August morning by a cow, his Tia Ramona and his Tio Flavio are troubled by how best to raise the boy. After the funeral, they drive to their childhood home behind the village office, but “before they reach the house, the front door swung open and Ramona’s grandfather, Epolito Montoya, who had been dead for thirteen years, stood in the doorway. ‘Why are you out in the rain?’ he said.”Ramona has returned reluctantly to this isolated village in northern New Mexico and to the family that never lets go. As she tries to build a modern life here on her own terms, and still to care for young José, she discovers that she can reach through time, see the richness of her heritage, and reclaim riches, knowledge, art that disappeared generations ago. In fact, she can speak with her ancestors and learn their stories.These, finally, are the fortunes she will try to pass on to José.