cover image Lone Stars

Lone Stars

Sophia Healy. Atlantic Monthly Press, $16.95 (169pp) ISBN 978-0-87113-302-1

Lupe is a young Mexican artist, dark, sensual and close enough to the earth to know the curandero --ancient herbal cures. Her husband Stas is a Polish emigre, also an artist, 20 years older than Lupe and obsessed with playing the stock market. They live in Texas on the bank of a small river called the Little Plata, within easy reach of Lupe's extended Mexican family and Stas's surprisingly large, intellectual emigre community. This ultra-spare first novel examines the thoughts each has about the other as Lupe prepares for a show in Houston, and then has an affair with the gallery owner, a Polish woman and former lover of Stas. While the love between Lupe and Stas endures--is even affirmed--Healy, also an artist, tells their tale with so light a touch it's hard to hold on to. Her intrinsically interesting characters speak often in cliches and are given to sudden, unexplained gestures that seem arbitrary. More mannered than subtle, Lupe and Stas's story is oversimplified and undertold. (Apr.)