In this well-researched and attractive exploration of the life of the "first mestizo," or "the first 'Mexican,' " Australian writer Lanyon (Malinche's Conquest
) tells the dramatic tale of Martín Cortés, the son of Hernán Cortés and the Amerindian woman Malinche, from his birth in 1522 in Tenochtitlán–Mexico City to his death less than five decades later near Granada. The story traces his passage to Spain as a six-year-old, long years of royal service under Charles V and the disastrous return to Mexico, where—accused of conspiracy against the Crown—Martín confronts imprisonment and brutal torture. Lanyon effectively interweaves historical reconstruction with personal narrative, crossing the divide between traveler and scholar in order to evoke the human immediacy of history. Lanyon is always receptive to the unsolicited clue and the unexpected sight connecting her, and us, to Martin's multiple new worlds. Waiting for a train in Madrid, Lan yon observes the immigrant faces: the "people of empire" who have crossed the Atlantic to stake their own modest claims on Spain. Lanyon avoids romanticizing the victims of conquest, but is acutely aware of the suffering of the indigenous peoples, and her fleeting analogies with the trauma of the Australian aborigines are illuminating. There are a few mistakes in her references to Spain before Empire, yet this remains a deeply likable book with significance beyond its immediate subject. Illus., maps. (July 1)
