Review by New York Times Review
In this sequel to 'The Hummingbird's Daughter,' a Mexican saint wanders the United States. LUIS ALBERTO URREA spent nearly 20 years researching his family history for his enchanting 2005 novel "The Hummingbird's Daughter." Out of old letters, historical documents and oral histories emerged the fantastical story of the author's great-aunt Teresa, a Mexican saint and revolutionary who was the illegitimate daughter of Tomás Urrea, a wealthy landowner, and a Yaqui Indian woman known simply as Cayetana, or the Hummingbird. By the final wrenching pages of that novel, Teresita, as she's called, has by presidential decree been declared the Most Dangerous Girl in Mexico. Banished from the country, she and her father are put on a train headed north to the United States. "Queen of America," Urrea's new novel, picks up not long after Teresita and Tomás have arrived across the border. Father and daughter are slowly making a new start in the Arizona desert. It's the end of the 19th century, and America may be the land of opportunity, but for Teresita and Tomás, it's also the land of exile, and above all they feel a sinking sense of displacement and loss: "Tomás felt forgotten, and Teresita hoped to be forgotten. But Tomás was wrong, and Teresita did not get her wish." There is a future here for the saint and her father, but it's not an easy one. Where "The Hummingbird's Daughter" was driven by an otherworldly mysticism and the call of fate, its sequel is largely occupied with the ordinary troubles of mortal life. "A legend is a relentless and cruel thing," Teresita observes. The sainthood that once seemed her glorious destiny now feels more like a burden. The youthful Teresita of the story's first installment was rugged, idealistic, irrepressible. But the exuberant spirit that animated the first book has been subdued: "This new exile was penance," Teresita thinks. Her saintly powers persist, but the wild girl has grown into a prim, lonely woman racked with self-doubt. Though she still heals the sick, she also has her eyebrows plucked and succumbs to frequent bouts of crying. Her father, too, is diminished. When three intoxicated "Americanos" exiting a saloon quite literally walk over him, Tomás is too stunned to react: "He simply sat and gawked as they receded." In America, the restless, driven man of the land has become a buffoonish figure whose blustering Spanglish obscenities obscure the unspoken "parade of rattling ideas, memories, worries, regrets, schemes that tramped through his skull." His main concern is his daughter. Teresita the saint is called to minister to the huddled masses, a celebrity figure in high demand. But Teresita the woman has other needs: "Holiness coming down on her every day, she was ashamed to admit, was a crashing bore." She quietly craves companionship and fine dresses. Struggling to reconcile her roles and desires, she follows one opportunity after another from Arizona to Texas, through California and to New York. She marries and divorces, becomes entrapped by a profiteering medical consortium, gets involved with a "rangy and dangerous" alcoholic, gives birth to two daughters and battles midlife sorrow. She flirts with New York's high society, then, growing disillusioned, retreats to Arizona. Although Urrea has stitched a seamless end to the saga initiated in "The Hummingbird's Daughter," "Queen of America" lacks the clarity of vision of its prequel. Having left behind Mexico's rich landscape and languages, the Urreas - Tomás and Teresita, and the author as well - grasp for inspiration. "You were the Queen of the Yaquis. What did it get you? Nothing!" a frustrated Tomás taunts his daughter at one point. In the previous book Teresita dreamed she was Queen of the World. But across the border in "Queen of America" she learns that in this new country, "you needed different dreams." 'Holiness coming down on her every day, she was ashamed to admit, was a crashing bore.' Mythili G. Rao has written for The New York Observer, Words Without Borders and Boston Review.
Copyright (c) The New York Times Company [December 25, 2012]
Review by Booklist Review
Although not quite as fresh as The Hummingbird's Daughter (2005), this entertaining sequel will continue to charm and enthrall a wide variety of readers. After being hastily deported from her beloved Mexico, Teresita Urrea, legendary healer and Saint of Cabora, must grapple with life and love in bustling, turn-of-the-century America. As her fame spreads throughout the country, she joins a shady medical consortium. Manipulated, exploited, denounced, and extolled for her gift, she travels around the U.S., visiting San Francisco, New York, St. Louis, and Los Angeles. Forced to walk a shaky tightrope straddling fame and humility, Teresita sees her American odyssey exacting a heavy toll on her emotional, spiritual, and physical well-being. This vividly rendered, historical kaleidoscope of a novel is deepened by more than a dollop of magical realism.--Flanagan, Margaret Copyright 2010 Booklist
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
The historical Teresita Urrea, the "Saint of Cabora," flees Mexico with her father after the Tomochic rebellion of 1891, in Urrea's sequel to the bestselling The Hummingbird's Daughter. Pursued by assassins, the Urreas seek sanctuary in rural Arizona. Teresita's father drinks heavily and refuses to accept the charity of pilgrims who've come to follow Teresita; the Urreas travel to Tucson, meeting the Von Order brothers, John and Harry. Teresita feels an immediate attraction to Harry, despite her burgeoning saintly powers. Father and daughter then move on to El Paso, where Teresita reluctantly takes a job as a journalist. She falls in love with a man and once again her saintliness conflicts with her romantic desires. She has a brief, unhappy marriage before finding redemption through the first of her many healings. This new chapter of her life leads her to San Francisco and then New York, where a sinister consortium exploits her abilities, working her nine to five and forcing her to choose between the saintly grace and simplicity of her old life and the modern trappings of fame, fortune, and romantic love. Despite a trundling life-story narrative that at times loses focus, and several flat passages, Urrea delivers a rich mix of Wild West and magic realism. (Dec.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
In The Hummingbird's Daughter, Lannan Award winner Urrea celebrated his great-aunt, Teresita Urrea, a 19th-century Indian girl who became a revered healer and eventually the Saint of Cabora. That book went on to sell 130,000 copies and became a One City, One Book selection in San Francisco. So there should be an audience for this follow-up, which pictures Teresita fleeing Mexico's violent Tomochic rebellion and heading for America. This book should have broad appeal; with a reading group guide and ten-city tour. (c) Copyright 2011. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
The Hummingbird's Daughter (2005), Urrea continues the mythic history of his great aunt Teresita as she begins a new life in the United States after escaping her political and religious enemies in Mexico in 1893. While a young girl in Mexico, Teresita, called the Saint of Cabora, has developed a wide following of believers in the healing power of her touch, although she insists that God does the healing and she is merely a conduit. The Mexican government believes she also foments rebellion, the reason 19-year-old Teresita and her father Toms Urrea flee to Arizona, where her father's best friend, a politically active newspaperman, uses her popularity to rally public sentiment against the corrupt Mexican president. Violence as well as goodness seems to follow in her wake, yet all Teresita wants is to practice her healing. She is a fascinating mix of wisdom, love of life's simple pleasures (like ice cream) and innocence, but is she a saint? As she and alcoholic, profane Toms--a landowner who impregnated Teresita's Indian mother--settle into Arizona society, Mexico sends agents to kill her. They all end up dead. But a more insidious evil eventually arrives in 1899: cruel but handsome Rodriguez, who marries her, them immediately tries to kill her; worse, he destroys her relationship with Toms and her local reputation. She has no choice but to leave Arizona. In California a consortium of questionable businessmen sets her up as a healer under a devious contract that keeps her a virtual prisoner until the lovable rogue John Van Order, a friend from her earliest Arizona days, arrives and negotiates a better deal. As her fame and notoriety spread, Teresita and John travel across the country to New York City, where she struggles to maintain spiritual clarity despite tasting earthly luxury and human love. Mixing religious mysticism, a panoramic view of history, a Dickensian cast of minor characters, low comedy and political breast-beating, Urrea's sprawling yet minutely detailed saga both awes and exhausts. ]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
