Beyond the Edge of the Known World
The Spanish Cortes of 1812 in Cádiz provides the historical catalyst for the life-changing journey of Juan, this tale’s fictional fourteen-year-old hero. From 1811 to 1815, he travels with his grandfather, Don Pedro Bautista Pino y Bano, New Mexico’s non-fictional delegate.
Leaving Santa Fe in winter, the delegation crosses the vast desert in an armed wagon train, bound for Veracruz and a Spanish armada sailing in spring. In Spain, Juan encounters racism when he is barred from the Cortes because of his colour. He then learns what it means that he is an Indio adopted by the Pino y Bano family, beginning an awakening to his cultural identity.
Juan works his passage back to Mexico as a deckhand, but his ship is captured and taken to Cuba, where he narrowly escapes enslavement. Fleeing to Mexico, he is mistakenly imprisoned as a revolutionary. His love of Don Quijote helps rescue him and gives him the opportunity to learn the noble art of listening.
The dense plot explores the forces disrupting the Spanish empire through romance, gunfire, corruption, treachery, plague, bereavement, religion, philosophy, and memorable characters in comic and harrowing situations. The novel provides an insight into the extraordinary diversity and tensions of the far-flung Spanish Empire. Although its message becomes a tad heavy-handed toward the end, the novel’s wealth of history, incident, and character keeps it engaging. I also admire its author: an eighty-three-year-old first-time novelist.
