Review by Booklist Review
Figueroa's curious and dazzling first novel features a family in which love has been tragically twisted by traumas old and new. The story takes place over the weekend during which sister Rufina and brother Rafa grieve for their recently deceased mother, Rosalinda, even as her ghost lingers. With Rafa heading into peril, Rufina, in a bid to save his life, proposes a bet stipulating that over that fateful weekend they will make enough money for Rafa to get away from his troubles by performing a strange tableau with imaginary instruments and disintegrating clothes, a stratagem devised by the evil "explorer" of the title, for the tourists in their dusty New Mexican town. Certain entities watch over Rufina, standing ready to support her when needed, including their adobe house; her actual, scruffy guardian angel; an old suitor who also happens to be the strangely endearing town cop; and the Grandmothers to All. Figueroa's omniscient, second-person narration creates an intimacy while the hypnotic rhythm of her prose and evocative mystical elements invoke an archetypal sense that is at once out-of-time and thoroughly contemporary as we grudgingly recognize our own precarious epoch.
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Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Figueroa's masterly debut explores the grief and trauma of two half siblings. Four months after the death of their mother, Rosalinda, Rufina and Rafa Rivera, 28 and 30, make a pact: if they collect enough money performing for the tourists visiting their high desert town in the American Southwest over the course of a weekend, the depressed Rafa will live, traveling in search of new beginnings, instead of taking his own life. The siblings take to the streets, performing for white tourists who listen, entranced, at Rufina's melodious, seductive whistling, or gaze intently at Rafa as he gleans meaning from the symbols he sees in people's shadows. The siblings are haunted by the ghosts of those long gone, including that of Rufina's stillborn baby, and by memories of their mother's enigmatic former lover, the Explorer. Meanwhile, repeated intrusions of those who only wish to help--such as a cop who gives them a pass for performing without a permit as long as they don't come back--add to the difficulty in achieving their goal. Though the novel brims with spellbinding prose, magical elements, and wounded, full hearted characters that nearly jump off the page, its most remarkable feature is perhaps its piercing critique of the white Anglo tourists' tendency to romanticize people of color, as well as Figueroa's examination of the traumatic effect this attitude can have on those who are deemed "the Other." This cleverly constructed and deeply moving account enthralls. Agent: PJ Mark, Janklow & Nesbit Assoc. (Apr.)
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Review by Library Journal Review
DEBUT In Figueroa's seductive, lyrically wrought debut, as much dreamscape as story, the mother of Rufina and Rafa has been dead for months but haunts them still at their house in Ciudad de Tres Hermanas. Though nearly 30 and world-traveled, Rafa was always held close by his mother and cannot imagine living without her, so 28-year-old Rufina makes him a bet. That weekend, if they can earn enough money performing in the plaza to leave town, he must embrace life. Otherwise, he can do as he pleases. In childhood, the siblings worked the plaza as part of a live installation devised by the Explorer, a charmer who insinuated himself into the family and wreaked havoc. Now, as clueless tourists trot by, Rafa exercises his special magic--reading meaning into shadows--and Rufina sings seductively, watched over by a ragged angel and a worshipful young policeman. She's as troubled as Rafa, still imagining she has the baby lost long ago in childbirth. Family and ancestral history are bound tightly with immediate events as the weekend moves toward its fateful last hours. VERDICT The narrative can get a little lost in the gorgeous, reflective language but remains an absorbing study of memory and grief.
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