Yankee Invasion: A Novel of Mexico City

The psychological effects of invasion and occupation provide the centerpiece for prominent Mexican author Solares’s unusual and uneven historical novel. Aging journalist Abelardo, spurred on by his wife to investigate his lingering bouts of melancholy, begins a memoir chronicling his experiences during the 1847 Mexican-American War 50 years earlier, including his friendship with an intellectual sparring partner, Dr. Urruchúa, and a love triangle with local beauty Isabel and her society mother, also named Isabel. The young Abelardo is drawn to the fragile, love-struck daughter, as well as her independent, fiery mother, a situation that leads to the rupture of the family. Abelardo struggles to find a balance between his duty to fight for Mexico’s independence and Dr. Urruchúa’s theory that the country, led into dire straights by the notorious General Santa Anna, could find economic and political stability under American occupation. Solares’s attempt to weave Abelardo’s emotional dilemmas into Mexico’s political crises leads to an unsatisfying blend of psychology and history; neither the romance nor the chronicle of war catch fire amid the meandering existential pondering. (May)