Father Junipero's Confessor
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $7.99
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- $7.99
Publisher Description
Led by the zealous Fray Junipero Serra to the fringes of the Spanish Empire in the mid-1700s, Franciscan missionaries Francisco Palou and Juan Crespi are as fervid as their master about the opportunity posed by Alta California: to gloriously swell the kingdom of God through conversion--consensual or forced--of the native people. As Crespi and our sensitive but bitterly envious narrator, Palou, vie for Serra’s fickle favor, a chain of their newly established missions creeps north up the fog-enshrouded coast from Mexico. A master stylist and a meticulous researcher, Nick Taylor vividly captures the atmosphere of early California as he dramatizes the politics of the era: the horrifying and tragic gaps in understanding between priests and natives; the vicious power plays between crown and church; and the fervor, ambition, and desperation that fueled European settlement of the region. This novel’s publication coincides with the celebration of the 300th anniversary of Junipero Serra’s birth.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Norris's first novel is extraordinarily promising and wildly uneven. He follows two characters, Touissant and Erycha, from childhood until they begin college. They live in different Highland, Calif., neighborhoods and tell different stories of black experience. Touissant is the child of a university professor and his journey to articulate to himself who he is as a black man is marked by a deep, internal, philosophical conversation; Norris's depiction of how joining a football team or choosing a college are major decisions for Touissant are fascinating and successful. Erycha, the "dancer" of the title, is also processing her experiences to create an identity, but her story is missing the inner illumination Norris brings to Touissant, and, by comparison, she feels too familiar. In the moments of their meeting, which bookend the novel, both Erycha and Touissant reach a peak of inauthenticity; they lie to each other, and it's not much clearer by the end why they lied than it was in the beginning. Read the book for Touissant's inner monologues, and keep an eye out for Norris's next novel; if this book is any indication, he's developing a major talent.
