false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1180667891m/1063298.jpg 1063298 5 A novel about the Alamo promises as much suspense as a movie about the Titanic: we already know how it's going to end. The bloody siege of the Alamo was, of course, not only the defining crisis in the Texan struggle for independence from Mexico but also an event that secured martyrdom for the 200 or so men who died there and transformed a dusty Franciscan mission into a national shrine, an American Troy. As with all mythologized chronicles, however, the Battle of the Alamo ultimately resolves into mundane fact, a catalog of human error, ego, and heroism. And it is these details that Stephen Harrigan regards in his broad and powerful third novel, <I>The Gates of the Alamo</I>.<p> Passing lightly over the oft-profiled Alamo stalwarts--Jim Bowie, Davy Crockett, and the young commander William Travis--Harrigan focuses on fictional secondaries, primarily botanist Edmund McGowan and mother and son Mary and Terrell Mott. Rigidly devoted to his work, Edmund straddles the fence in the dispute over Texas, even as war murmurs grow. But when he meets widowed Mary, who maintains her small inn with a steady, gentle resourcefulness, his good nature pulls him steadily into the inevitable conflict. Mary herself is forced to quarter Mexican soldiers; and then, as she watches incredulously, her young son seeks to test himself in the erupting skirmishes. Eventually the trio find themselves inside the Alamo during the nearly two-week battle, their various conciliations frustrated by the surrounding mayhem.<p> Harrigan's Texas is an uncertain, dangerous jostling of peoples, a place where disaster threatens too frequently, where practical knowledge is paramount and political ambivalence untenable, and where a primal beauty appears often as if by magic: "Hundreds and hundreds of lush gray cranes ... spanned the sky almost from horizon to horizon, and the whole procession moved with the quiet, ordained manner in which events unfold in a dream." However, the emblematic significance of the Alamo itself remains inscrutable. As Mary tends to the dying, watching hope turn to hopelessness, she can only respond to Travis's rallying orations with disillusionment: "She had heard enough of these empty patriotic effusions by now to feel that the Alamo was nothing but a sinking island of rhetoric." <I>The Gates of the Alamo</I> nonetheless sweeps us into the many and variegated smaller stories that compose the larger one. It's a book to remember. <I>--Ben Guterson</I> 1049937 2000 The Gates of the Alamo total:143|5:37|4:49|3:48|2:8|1:1| 143 542 228 33 4 1 false false Sun Jul 27 19:37:00 -0700 2008 Wed Aug 15 09:01:46 -0700 2007 Sun Jul 27 19:37:00 -0700 2008 more...]]> 3 0 false false Sat Apr 20 00:00:00 -0700 2002 Tue Aug 11 14:32:16 -0700 2009 Tue Aug 11 14:33:34 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 1 false false Wed Mar 01 00:00:00 -0800 2000 Fri Sep 19 15:53:42 -0700 2008 Fri Sep 19 15:56:16 -0700 2008 4 0 false false Wed Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Tue Sep 02 16:53:21 -0700 2008 Fri Oct 03 21:24:09 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Aug 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sat Jan 05 06:33:15 -0800 2008 Sat Jan 05 06:44:38 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2004 Mon Jan 12 23:56:08 -0800 2009 Mon Jan 12 23:59:46 -0800 2009 more...]]> 4 0 false false Thu Jul 10 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Mon Jul 14 09:32:24 -0700 2008 Mon Jul 14 09:40:01 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Mon Oct 15 23:41:47 -0700 2007 Mon Oct 22 07:03:15 -0700 2007
EDIT: Upon finishing this ...more...]]> 0 0 false false Tue Jan 13 12:08:27 -0800 2009 Tue Jan 13 12:09:45 -0800 2009 perception of the "heroes" of the Alamo is changing. Evidently
they're not the squeaky-clean images that John Wayne would have us
believe. I'm not sure I like that. ]]> 4 0 false false Tue Jan 27 16:04:54 -0800 2009 Tue Jan 27 16:07:22 -0800 2009 0 0 false false Tue Jun 02 14:08:55 -0700 2009 Tue Jun 02 14:09:54 -0700 2009 5 0 false false Thu Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 10 07:44:59 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 10 07:46:04 -0800 2009 3 0 false false Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2000 Sat Mar 21 20:31:01 -0700 2009 Sat Mar 21 20:31:35 -0700 2009 4 0 false false Tue May 26 00:00:00 -0700 2009 Fri May 08 21:46:37 -0700 2009 Tue May 26 12:16:33 -0700 2009 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Apr 01 15:31:38 -0700 2007 Sun Apr 01 15:34:46 -0700 2007 more...]]> 3 0 false false Fri May 02 09:48:36 -0700 2008 Mon Feb 18 12:48:10 -0800 2008 Fri May 02 09:48:36 -0700 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Apr 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Tue Apr 24 01:11:08 -0700 2007 Tue Apr 24 01:13:44 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sat Jun 28 12:19:08 -0700 2008 Tue Jul 29 19:10:03 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Wed Oct 15 23:28:24 -0700 2008 Wed Oct 15 23:51:10 -0700 2008
That said, I really didn't know anything about the Alamo (other than that it was closed the one time I was in San Antonio for a few hours). I thought the book was very interesting.]]> 5 0 true false Sat Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2005 Mon Feb 11 15:35:20 -0800 2008 Mon Feb 11 15:38:17 -0800 2008 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=1063298