cover image Paradise Misplaced

Paradise Misplaced

Sylvia Montgomery Shaw. Swedenborg Foundation (Chicago Distribution Center, dist.), $15.95 trade paper (304p) ISBN 978-0-87785-341-1

Shaw has a killer of an opener: “The plan was simple and well-intentioned. So, too, was the murder.” And thereby hangs an ambitious, three-part tale, set during the Mexican revolution of 1910 and centered on the Nyman family, headed by the domineering Gen. Lucio Nyman Berquist, a Swede whose marriage to the Mexican Manuela Vizcarra has produced three sons, a daughter, fabulous wealth, and strife. The narrative has two major pieces; one describes the immediate aftermath of the opening killing. The second is a flashback, a memoir penned in prison. Memoir writer Benjamin Nyman Vizcarra, one of the general’s sons, describes the events that have led him to prison, including his wild love for Isabel, a woman he thinks has betrayed him. The flamboyant story is equally colored by magical realism (El Brujo, a wizard-like Tarahumara Indian character who runs unceasingly in the prison yard) and Swedenborgianism (heroine Isabel is a Swedenborgian). But the reader need not be familiar with Swedenborg to understand and delight in the narrative arc. (Apr.)