Good afternoon, mis internet amigxs,
We're chatting with Alvaro on Monday night about Now I Surrender, but we're in the midst of our spoilery discussion of Now I Surrender today on Discord. I'd meant to record a video on my thoughts to submit to book reviews, but since losing Veela on Monday, I haven't felt up for being in front of the camera. So today is a first for Bien Leidos: I'm sharing all the notes I've written down (warning: some are spoilery thoughts) about Now I Surrender and also a bibliography I developed from Alvaro's acknowledgements and personal lore below:
Literary fiction that comes with a bibliography can be a blessing or a curse. It can ask too much of the reader, dragging down the action of the story. But how many facts tips fiction towards nonfiction? Does a zealous love of history make historical fiction inaccessible or boring for the reader? I've seen a number of takes like this about Now I Surrender this month and it's been so interesting because if this was a more familiar history, would readers have felt the same way? I know for me, I always approach historical fiction as a student and luckily for me, Alvaro is a professor who shares the books he references openly not just in his text but in his acknowledgements. We have a full bibliography to pull from and his references lead me down a mini 2-book rabbit hole after I finished my reread on audio (see below).
This small literary detour made big changes in my perspective of the book. For example, when I originally read the opening of the book, it struck me as an anxious and self-aware author pretending he was the biblical god in the book of Genesis, creating the world they were introducing to us. I thought it was a clever, self-depricating device that delivered this work of fiction to the reader, reminding us that Alvaro is the person creating the story, but also as a way of injecting himself into the story, which he would do time and again throughout the novel.
However, when I read Geronimo: In His Own Words, I realized the opening of Now I Surrender was actually a reference to how Geronimo's autobiography begins:
"In the beginning the world was covered with darkness. There was no sun, no day. The perpetual night had no moon or stars."
versus Now I Surrender:
"In the beginning, things appear. Writing is a defiant gesture we've long since gotten used to: where there was nothing, somebody put something, and now everybody sees it."
I'm pretty sure there are many, many references like this I would never get in Now I Surrender, but for what Alvaro delivered, I appreciated both what this book was on its face, what it tried to teach the reader about this often overlooked part of history, usually swept aside and whitewashed not just by history books, but also in media. His focus on making the borderlands complicated, messy and multifaceted both in its population and history is greatly appreciated by this student of history.
Whether you get the references or not, Alvaro makes the setting, place, and people fully developed elements of the story. You can see the landscape, mountains, feel the heat and dustiness of the desert. Janos is a footnote of a town. You travel through the desert side-by-side with Camila. Geronimo is much, much more than the chief of the Chiricahua Apache. American and Mexican bureaucracy is desultory and ineffectual. You also felt the dizzying grief of surrender but not defeat.
I'm never sure whether to greet Alvaro's absurdity with laughter or tears. He has this penchant for writing about these unbelievably sad turning points in history and making the details funny while talking about the last of something: in the case of Geronimo, the last to surrender. You could tell Alvaro truly admires Geronimo as a person, warrior, leader, legend and wanted the reader to come out of the book with some semblance of his respect. Alvaro taught me more about Geronimo than any history class I had in school.
I am the first to admit that I do not gravitate towards women written by men, but I was pretty awestruck in the way Camila was developed: from a nameless, fearful woman fleeing to a strong and extremely competent Chiricahua wife telling Zuloaga how things were going to be. Quite honestly, I was suspect when she first appeared on the page, but she became central to the story and was the vessel through which timelines are revealed--because it DID take me a while to realize that Geronimo's timeline was decades after hers--but she was also far more important than the opening of the novel appeared to make her. The revelation of who she was to Geronimo was bittersweet in many ways and I loved how it tied to all the lore of Mangas Coloradas, Cochise and Geronimo and their joint lineage together.
Alvaro certainly had more runway to write than in his previous ones and I loved that he included epistolary elements such as interviews and telegrams to set the political stage of Geronimo's surrender. He made politicians and soldiers farces for their participation in the decimation of indigenous peoples. He dehumanized the colonizers through their bureaucracy and I was cheering him on for that type of intellectual humiliation.
I found the distinction, or lack of distinction, between the Mexican government and the US government so interesting. I also thought the reasoning the Chiriacahua chose to surrender to the US was absolutely fascinating. You so rarely hear the perspective of the Mexican government's treatment of indigenous peoples. Again, I learned so much from this book, and I was so grateful for the lesson, although I do understand that historical fiction isn't here to necessarily teach us, but it can be the beginning of understanding a moment in history.
I personally believe that the key to enjoying an Alvaro book is if you can read the first line and last line in a row and you not only does your jaw drop from the way they're connected, but find that you enjoyed the journey between them satisfying. He lands a last line like gymnast hurtling towards a perfect landing on the vault that gets 10s across the board. Now I Surrender is all 10s for me.
READING JOURNEY
As I mentioned, Now I Surrender lead me down a path, so here's my reading journey and why I followed up with these books:
Lost Children Archive by Valeria Luiselli: Fun fact for the chismosas, Valieria is Alvaro's ex-wife and this book is her perspective on the real-life trip Alvaro took with his family from NYC to Arizona to research Now I Surrender. This is a fictionalization as well, so obviously not all fact, but this was an interesting foil to how the road trip was presented in Now I Surrender. Read this if you're into he-said-she-said.
Geronimo: In His Own Words as told to JM Barrett: It was so fascinating to hear Gernonimo's story and perspective as was told to Barrett. Again, he's a historical figure I'm not super familiar with, so it was fascinating to hear the cadence of his words and storytelling.
Here are others referenced in the acknowledgements for those that want to continue to learn:
If you made it all the way here, thank you so much for your attention. I'm curious what you thought about Now I Surrender and if I said anything in the review that made you want to pick it up.
xoxo,
Carmen
