Tales of the New World

July 11, 2011
Most of PEN/Faulkner Awardâwinner Murray's new story collection (after her 2007 novel Forgery) delves into the psyches of historical explorers and adventurers, affording rare glimpses of vulnerability in those who appear invulnerable. In "Translation," wealthy 15th-century translator Antonio Pigafetta befriends Ferdinand Magellan on an expedition to the Indies and records sailors' atrocities; after reading his journal, Magellan asks him to embellish the truth and alter the course of history. "The Solace of Monsters" imagines the chance meeting of Zimri Coffin, captain of the Dauphin, and Capts. Pollard and Ramsdell of the Essex, who Coffin rescues after their ship is "stove in by a whale." "Balboa" concerns the discovery and naming of the South Sea by the famous Spanish conquistador ("Vasco Nunez de Balboa ascends the mountain alone. His one thousand Indians and two hundred Spaniards wait at the foot of the mountain as if they are Israelites and Balboa alone is off to speak with God"); standing on the side of a mountain with just his dog Leoncico for company, Balboa has a rare, and humorous, defenseless moment despite his ruthless reputation. Murray's spirited writing is rooted in humanity and creates a fine sense of the real behind the lore.

November 1, 2011
In 10 stories by Murray (Forgery, 2007, etc.), historical figures adventure into new worlds largely because they feel excluded in their old ones. "Fish," practically a novella, introduces and lays out the theme of outsider-turned-explorer in the story of Mary Kingsley. A meekly subservient Victorian daughter, she barely leaves her house until she is 29. Then using her health as an excuse, she travels to the Canary Islands. Soon she's hiking into the African interior where no Brit has gone before. Murray focuses on Kingsley's interior life, the fairies that bedevil her as she defies convention. The stories that follow seldom display the same emotional complexity, although "His Actual Mark" comes close: In old age Edward Jon Eyre tries to reconcile the disconnect between his 1840 trek across Australia alone with a young aborigine, to whom he owes his survival, and his controversial fame for suppressing rebellion among Jamaican blacks 25 years later. "Paradise" probes the identity of Jim Jones of Jonestown infamy, and by extension other monster leaders from Pol Pot to Idi Amin to Hitler. The monsters of "The Solace of Monsters" are both whales and the whalers who hunt and fear them. Buccaneer William Dampier sails around the world three times, sometimes with the British government's blessing. Readers may wonder if the young Jesuit who becomes Dr. Murray and travels to the Far East is the author's father, but the story "Periplus" feels more philosophic than personal. Elsewhere, a self-proclaimed Venetian scholar sailing with Magellan chronicles the explorer's wrongheaded choices even as he falls in love with him. A seer helplessly foretells the destruction of the Aztecs by the Spanish invasion. "Balboa" is a pig farmer escaping debt. And finally while visiting "On Sakhalin" and taking a fake census of the penal colony, Chekhov represents the storywriter as explorer and outsider both. Murray's writing is chilly, but she is astute about the addictive nature of adventure and the unnerving relationship between the explorer and those he explores/hunts.

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August 1, 2011

This collection of short stories shares the common thread of geographical exploration, seen through the lives and travels of familiar names like Balboa and Magellan. Also included are more unfamiliar figures like Mary Kingsley, who despite a thwarted Victorian upbringing became a noted expert on Africa, and Edward John Eyre, an explorer of interior Australia who later sullied his reputation quelling a slave uprising in Jamaica. Given the real dangers of early travel, and with journey as an overarching metaphor, these stories become extended disquisitions on death. Even Eyre's native guide confuses expiration for exploration. In a bit of a stretch, one story focuses on cult leader Jim Jones, although he did end up in a strange place--and not just Guyana. Murray doesn't exactly put us inside the heads of these explorers, but rather sets them on their way and then speculates on their motives from a jaded, postmodern distance. VERDICT Plenty of historical facts for those who love travel writing, but primarily readers of literary fiction will want to jump on board. [See Prepub Alert, 5/9/11.]--Reba Melinda Leiding, James Madison Univ. Lib., Harrisonburg, VA

Copyright 2011 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

October 1, 2011
Murray, winner of the PEN/Faulkner Award for fiction, here collects six previously published and four new stories that, exerting a powerful emotional pull, peek into the lives of historical persons, some from a protagonist's and some from an observer's point of view. Most are set at points of life crisis, at which Murray interprets the reactions and examines the motives of the protagonist. The Magellan, Cortes, and Balboa stories are representative of the style and the structure of all the tales. The most wrenching piece tells the story of Jim Jones and Jonestown through the eyes of a nameless survivor of the mass suicide. The lures of travel and of scientific discovery and the human penchant for misery figure prominently in the stories' thematic content. Get this title for fans of descriptive short fiction and readers who enjoyed Gabriel Garc-a Mrquez's The General in His Labyrinth (1990), Linda Bierds' The Ghost Trio (1994), and Brooks Hansen's The Monsters of St. Helena (2003).(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2011, American Library Association.)