Critics' Opinion:
Readers' rating:
Published Jun 2010
288 pages
Genre: Literary Fiction
Publication Information
Paperback Original. The gentle-hearted Flavio Montoya returns, now as the aged scion of his family, still tending his sister Ramona's fields and wondering how all of his family could have died before him. When the mountains surrounding Guadalupe erupt in flames, the history of the village seems to be set loose in the smoke. The dead arrive and the silent speak. When Flavio is accused of starting the fire that quickly threatens to consume the village, the disaster becomes one more mystery that he must fold into his own memory, though he cannot quite understand any of it. A Santo in the Image of Cristobal Garcia is a beautiful, funny, even epic tale of how all history is finally personal.
"Dreamlike and melancholy, it is a worthy read, if slow-paced and often painfully-though not tritely-sentimental. " - Publishers Weekly
"The story re-creates the earlier history of the town from its initial settling until its final immolation... the author assumes familiarity with characters from the previous works, especially the first, so generally this new book won't mean much outside of their context." - Library Journal
"In the final installment of his Guadalupe trilogy, Collignon deftly blends history and magic realism to create a moving account of the last day of family patriarch Flavio Montoya." - Booklist
This information about A Santo in the Image of Cristobal Garcia was first featured
in "The BookBrowse Review" - BookBrowse's membership magazine, and in our weekly "Publishing This Week" newsletter. Publication information is for the USA, and (unless stated otherwise) represents the first print edition. The reviews are necessarily limited to those that were available to us ahead of publication. If you are the publisher or author and feel that they do not properly reflect the range of media opinion now available, send us a message with the mainstream reviews that you would like to see added.
Any "Author Information" displayed below reflects the author's biography at the time this particular book was published.
Rick Collignon is the author of three other novels, The Journal of Antonio Montoya, Perdido (the first two volumes of his Guadalupe trilogy) and Madewell Brown. Originally from the Chicago area, he has lived in northern New Mexico for over 30 years.
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