Blue Rodeo

Starred review from May 2, 1994
A bittersweet story of middle-aged romance and family relationships, Mapson's second novel (after the praised Hank & Chloe ) is an engrossing, affecting story that should have solid popular appeal. Set in the Tony Hillerman and Barbara Kingsolver country of Southwestern small towns and Indian reservations, it chronicles the unlikely love affair of recent divorcee Margaret Yearwood, who has fled her chic California life and hopes to begin painting again, and former alcoholic Owen Garrett, now a sheepherder and hardware store clerk. Both Maggie and Owen are hiding troubled pasts and think themselves failures. Ditched by her husband for a younger woman and heartsick over the fact that meningitis has left her teenaged son Peter totally deaf, Maggie has come to the little town of Blue Dog, New Mexico, to be near Peter's boarding school, but he refuses to see her. Owen once accidentally killed a man and has been on the run ever since; he is the Marlboro man with a tender and sensitive streak. These two lonely, displaced people heal each other with passionate love (Mapson doesn't stint on the sex scenes), but circumstances preclude immediate happiness. Meanwhile, both Maggie and her son move toward maturity, learn to cope with loss and acquire the wisdom to understand ``the necessity of grief, and its partner, joy.'' Maggie's reckless, charismatic sister Nori and Owen's best friend, Navajo Joe Yazzi, are supporting players, each emotionally scarred and searching for soul's peace. Mapson's affection for the Southwestern landscape and for the Native American culture is palpable. She has a particularly acute ear for the attitudes and lingo of teenagers, but her writing sometimes veers toward the saccharine. On the whole, however, she has proved herself wise in the ways of the human heart. Literary Guild and Doubleday Book Club selection.