Cottonwood Saints

Based on a 40-page journal left by Guerin's mother, this debut novel follows the thwarted life of Margarita Juana Galvan (née Zamora), born in 1913 to impoverished laborers in New Mexico, also a focus here. Unloved and poorly cared for, Margarita is taken in by her great-aunt and -uncle, raised in their well-appointed hacienda and put in the care of Nasha, an Indian servant who becomes Margarita's beloved champion and protector. Although Margarita is treated like a princess, she hatches a lifelong desire to escape to a more perfect fantasyland, which rules the rest of her life. In a matter-of-fact chronology, Guerin weaves the major events of the century into the parallel stories of Margarita and of New Mexico. WWI, the Great Depression, and mass industrialization and WWII are juxtaposed with the familial dysfunction, lovelessness, violence, racism and frequent death that characterize Margarita's life; her own children leave Margarita disappointed. The whole is sheepishly recounted by the book's narrator, Margarita's youngest son, Michael, a priest defrocked due to alcoholism. Guerin, a documentary film scriptwriter, does better with New Mexico than with Margarita; the book is best read as a history-loving son's roman à clef. (Nov. 1)