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The City of Palaces: A Novel
In the years before the Mexican Revolution, Mexico is ruled by a tiny elite that apes European culture, grows rich from foreign investment, and prizes racial purity. The vast majority of Mexicans, who are native or of mixed native and Spanish blood, are politically powerless and slowly starving to death. Presiding over this corrupt system is Don Porfirio Díaz, the ruthless and inscrutable president of the Republic.
Against this backdrop, The City of Palaces opens in a Mexico City jail with the meeting of Miguel Sarmiento and Alicia Gavilán. Miguel is a principled young doctor, only recently returned from Europe but wracked by guilt for a crime he committed as a medical student ten years earlier. Alicia is the spinster daughter of an aristocratic family. Disfigured by smallpox, she has devoted herself to working with the city's destitute. This unlikely pair-he a scientist and atheist and she a committed Christian-will marry. Through their eyes and the eyes of their young son, José, readers follow the collapse of the old order and its bloody aftermath.
The City of Palaces is a sweeping novel of interwoven Miguel and Alicia; José, a boy as beautiful and lonely as a child in a fairy tale; the idealistic Francisco Madero, who overthrows Díaz but is nevertheless destroyed by the tyrant's political system; and Miguel's cousin Luis, shunned as a "sodomite." A glittering mosaic of the colonial past and the wealth of the modern age, The City of Palaces is a story of faith and reason, cathedrals and hovels, barefoot street vendors and frock-coated businessmen, grand opera and silent film, presidents and peasants, the living and the dead.
Against this backdrop, The City of Palaces opens in a Mexico City jail with the meeting of Miguel Sarmiento and Alicia Gavilán. Miguel is a principled young doctor, only recently returned from Europe but wracked by guilt for a crime he committed as a medical student ten years earlier. Alicia is the spinster daughter of an aristocratic family. Disfigured by smallpox, she has devoted herself to working with the city's destitute. This unlikely pair-he a scientist and atheist and she a committed Christian-will marry. Through their eyes and the eyes of their young son, José, readers follow the collapse of the old order and its bloody aftermath.
The City of Palaces is a sweeping novel of interwoven Miguel and Alicia; José, a boy as beautiful and lonely as a child in a fairy tale; the idealistic Francisco Madero, who overthrows Díaz but is nevertheless destroyed by the tyrant's political system; and Miguel's cousin Luis, shunned as a "sodomite." A glittering mosaic of the colonial past and the wealth of the modern age, The City of Palaces is a story of faith and reason, cathedrals and hovels, barefoot street vendors and frock-coated businessmen, grand opera and silent film, presidents and peasants, the living and the dead.
389 pages, Kindle Edition
First published January 1, 2014
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706 people want to read
About the author
Michael Nava
33 books343 followersMichael Nava is the author of a groundbreaking series of crime novels featuring a gay, Latino criminal defense lawyer Henry Rios. Nava is a six-time recipient of the Lambda Literary Award in the mystery category, as well as the Bill Whitehead Lifetime Achievement Award for gay and lesbian literature.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 54 reviews
December 18, 2020
Thinking of books I've read set in Mexico, this one first came to mind. POTUS brings down government of Mexico, about 100 years ago.
Noticed that it has been tagged 'Gay' ... none of the sexuality remains in my memory.
An informative novel recommended for readers of historical fiction in in historic Mexico.
This was a difficult book to finish ... humankind's capacity to trod on ...
Hope Nava will publish a sequel.
***
Here's a quote from near the end:
" ... What about the Americans? Their ambassador engineered this coup and Huerta is his creature. Wilson could guarantee Madero's safety.'
"A flash of anger crossed Gossen's placid features. 'The American ambassador takes the position that the fate of President Madero--to whom he is still accredited--is strictly an internal Mexican affair. He takes no position on the subject.'
"'That bastard!' Sarmiento said. 'Wilson brings down Madero's government and now he washes his hands of him.'
"'Do you know Ruben Dario's 'Ode to Roosevelt'?' the ambassador asked and then, without waiting for a reply, began to recite, 'You are the United States, future invader of Spanish America.' He tapped a heavy gold signet ring against the window. 'Nothing good comes out of the North,' he said. 'From that furnace of aggession and greed and self-righteousness. All of Spanish America feels its heat, but only Mexico roasts on its spit.'"
"A Roosevelt" (To Roosevelt) is a poem by Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío. The poem concerns the involvement of the United States during the Separation of Panama from Colombia. Full text at review's end.)
***
The first paragraph :
"The first time Sarmiento saw the woman who would become his wife, he thought she was a nun. She rushed toward him across one of the fetid courtyards of Belem prison, where he had gone to find his father. She was clad in a long, dark dress he assumed was a nun's habit and her face, also like a nun's, was veiled. She called out to him urgently, 'Senor, Senor, are you a doctor?' He raised his medical bag in assent as she reached him, breathless. It was then he realized her costume was not that of a religious order because, although drab, the material was rich. The dress was a shimmering silk of midnight blue,* and the veil in the same shade dropped like a curtain from her bonnet and was a finely woven lace mesh that revealed only the shadowy contours of her face. Her appearance in the courtyard had attracted the attention of the inmates--dirty, barefoot men in tattered clothes, dark faces shaded by the broad brims of their high-peaked sombreros ..."
...
"'Take me to her,' he said.
"He followed her through a series of squalid courtyards. Open privies spilled their reek and a few mangy dogs lapped brackish water from fountains where nuns had dipped their pails when Belem
had been a wealthy convent in the seventeenth century. Ciudad de Mexico was then the crown jewel of New Spain. So regal were the edifices the Spanish had built on the ruins of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, that a visitor had christened it the City of Palaces. Now, as the nineteenth century drew to a close, the ancient palaces had been abandoned, converted to mercantile uses or, like Belem, were in near ruins. In their place were the garish new public works of the government of the dictator, Porfirio Diaz, all shiny brass and Carrara marble." ...
... "The veiled woman gave him a bundle of fine linen, incongruous in these dank surroundings. He wrapped the child and handed him to her." ...
..."He found his father in a spacious room in the wing of the prison reserved for opposition politicians and journalists who criticized the government. Here they were kept for a few days or a few weeks in relative comfort until the dictator remembered them and ordered their release. There was no official censorship in Mexico, and the Constitution of 1857, which his father had helped write, guaranteed freedom of speech. The government tolerated the minimum of dissent required to satisfy the need of foreign observers for the illusion of a democratic Mexico. Sometimes, though, a journalist or a politician took the promise of free speech too seriously and found himself picked up by la seguridad, Diaz's secret police, and deposited in one of these cells, like an impertinent child sent to his room."
***
page 20 - "This is what Sarmiento had been unable to explain to the Romans he befriended on his travels. In their city, the imperial ruins were like the abandoned rooms in the family palazzo, places where their ancestors had lived lives different only in degree, not kind. But in Mexico, the stones beneath the hulking churches and palaces of the Spanish were the gravestones of an alien race whose men had been murdered and its women raped. The conquest had also robbed that race of its vitality. Each generation following the conquest was more servile and lethargic than the last until the Aztecs had devolved from plumed emperors to turkey herders in soiled loincloths. When Sarmiento told his Roman friends that his country was the product of rape, they had laughed gaily and replied, 'But all nation.' Perhaps so, he thought, but in Mexico the memory was burned into the stones and the air."
page 23 - " ... The family's titles go back to colonial times. Of course, I suppose she and her family should properly be called ex-nobles since we are a proper republic now,' he said, placing a mocking hand over his heart. 'After the French invasion their titles and an old palace were all they had left. The old marques--that traitor--sided with the French and their puppet emperor, Maximiliano. He was lucky he wasn't shot. Instead, his properties were confiscated and he was ruined. I heard for a while they were so hard up they were eating beans off of gold plates. But the old man was able to marry off his eldest daughters to various rich friends of our beloved president,' he continued. 'Nothing makes new money respectable more swiftly than a wife with a title and an old name. Sadly, he could not find any takers for the Condesa de San Juan.'"
(For an informative novel about the French Invasion, I suggest Chapultepec
Chapultepec
page 29 - "The flowering cross, for example. Graciela the baker, with hands like leather from decades of reaching into stoves, told Alicia that the stonemason who carved the cross had been from a wild tribe in the far north called the Yaquis. 'Nahautl, like us,' she explained, 'but when the rest of us came to Tenochtitlan, the Yaquis stayed behind in a river valley that was like the Garden of Eden. They worshipped the deer who up his life to give them meat to eat and hides for clothes. When the priests came and told them about Jesus, well, to the Yaquis, Jesus and the deer were the same and they converted.
"'Flowers are sacred to the Yaquis,' Alicia told Sarmiento, repeating the words Graciela had told her. 'They call heaven the flower world. They say that when Jesus was on the cross, flowers sprang up where his drops of blood touched the earth. That's why the artist carved flowers on the cross. For him they are the blood and resurrection of Jesus.'
"'The Yaquis?' Sarmiento said. 'The same tribe the government is fighting up in the north?'"
(For a novel featuring Yaqui enslavement ... I suggest Fontes' Centaur
Dreams Of The Centaur: A Novel
***
Here's a spoiler type summary from the University of Wisconsin press, the book's publisher. (I'm curious how UW came to that role.?)
"In the years before the Mexican Revolution, Mexico is ruled by a tiny elite that apes European culture, grows rich from foreign investment, and prizes racial purity. The vast majority of Mexicans, who are native or of mixed native and Spanish blood, are politically powerless and slowly starving to death. Presiding over this corrupt system is Don Porfirio Díaz, the ruthless and inscrutable president of the Republic.
Against this backdrop, The City of Palaces opens in a Mexico City jail with the meeting of Miguel Sarmiento and Alicia Gavilán. Miguel is a principled young doctor, only recently returned from Europe but wracked by guilt for a crime he committed as a medical student ten years earlier. Alicia is the spinster daughter of an aristocratic family. Disfigured by smallpox, she has devoted herself to working with the city’s destitute. This unlikely pair—he a scientist and atheist and she a committed Christian—will marry. Through their eyes and the eyes of their young son, José, readers follow the collapse of the old order and its bloody aftermath.
The City of Palaces is a sweeping novel of interwoven lives: Miguel and Alicia; José, a boy as beautiful and lonely as a child in a fairy tale; the idealistic Francisco Madero, who overthrows Díaz but is nevertheless destroyed by the tyrant’s political system; and Miguel’s cousin Luis, shunned as a “sodomite.” A glittering mosaic of the colonial past and the wealth of the modern age, The City of Palaces is a story of faith and reason, cathedrals and hovels, barefoot street vendors and frock-coated businessmen, grand opera and silent film, presidents and peasants, the living and the dead."
***
What was happening in Mexico in 1910 could be like enslaving Apache men, the women killed, and the children placed in orphanages. The Yaquis being cousin to the Apache.
page 154 - "'In the days before the Americans fought their civil war, there was a system of sanctuaries that helped the black salves escape from the southern part of the United States to Canada, where they were free. It was called the underground railroad. The sanctuaries were established by good Christians who knew that human slavery was abhorrent to the Lord. ...
"'For twenty years, Yaqui men have been deported from their homeland in Sonora and sold as slaves to the henequen haciendas, where are worked to death. Over time, we have created our own sanctuaries to help those who escape reach the American border. Our own underground railroad. This church is a station on that railroad. ..."
page 191 - "'It wasn't just the crowds,' Luis said softly. 'I saw it with my own eyes that Diaz's Mexico is a Potemkin village, Miguel. All facade with nothing behind it. I saw the real Mexico. The Mexico profundo where the poor are so hungry they eat grass and bark. I met Indians whose land is being devoured by Diaz's cronies, entire towns swallowed up, and the people reduced to peonage. I talked to Mexican railroad workers who are paid a fraction of what the American owners pay their own countrymen for the same work. And it's not just the poor or the laborers,' he continued. 'There are two generations of univeristy-educated men who cannot find work anywhere but on the lowest rungs of their professions because Don Porfirio's clique of eighty-years-olds squat at the top. The conditions of Mexico are ripe for revolution.'
"'Yet here you are in prison,' Miguel said."
" ... he had proposed extending new sewage lines into old neighborhoods, replacing the fetid tenements ... inoculating children ... impossible, too costly ... Instead the government spent a million pesos on a glass curtain designed by Tiffany for the stage of the new opera house. ... The government paid the expenses of the thousands of dignitaries from across the world who flocked to the city to witness the apotheosis of Don Porfirio Diaz on the occasion of the one-hundredth anniversary of Mexico's independence. The poor were swept off the streets of the central city and kept away by battalions of police who enforced the cordon sanitaire with billy clubs and mass arrests. Luis was right--Ciudad de Mexico was a Potemkin village, a make-believe European city designed for the tourists and the notable from abroad."
***
9/6/18 ... and what becomes Alicia, Miguel and the Yaqui fate?
***
"Ode to Roosevelt
It is with the voice of the Bible, or verse of Walt Whitman,
that we should reach you, Hunter!
Primitive and modern, simple and complicated,
with a bit of Washington and a bit of Nimrod.
You are the United States,
You are the future invader
the naive America who has Indian blood,
that still prays to Jesus Christ and still speaks Spanish.
You are a proud and strong exemplar of your race;
you are cultured, you are clever, you oppose Tolstoy.
And breaking horses, or murdering tigers,
you are an Alejandro Nebuchadnezzar.
(You’re a professor of energy,
as today’s madmen say.)
You think life is fire,
that progress is eruption;
where you put your bullet
you put the future.
No.
The United States is strong and big.
When it shakes there is a deep tremor
through the enormous vertebrae of the Andes.
If you clamor, you hear the roar of the lion.
Hugo said to Grant: “The stars are yours.”
(Just shining, rising, Argentine sun
and the Chilean star rises ...) You’re rich.
Join Hercules’ cult to Mammon’s;
and lighting the path to easy conquest,
Liberty raises her torch in New York.
But our America, which had poets
from the old days of Netzahualcoyotl,
you have saved in the footsteps of the great feet of Bacchus
panic in the alphabet learned a while;
who consulted the stars, that knew Atlantis,
whose name comes to resonate in Plato
Since the ancient times of your life
living light, fire, perfume, love,
America’s great Montezuma, from the Inca,
redolent of America by Christopher Columbus
Catholic American, Spanish American,
The America where noble Cuahtemoc said:
“I’m not a bed of roses” that America
trembles in hurricanes and lives in Love,
men of Saxon eyes and barbarous soul lives.
And dreams. And loves, and vibrates, and is the daughter of the Sun
Be careful. Live the American Spanish!
There are thousand of puppies loose Leon Spanish.
Be required, Roosevelt, being God himself,
Rifleman the terrible and strong Hunter,
order to keep us in your tight grip.
And, You may count it all, missing one thing: God!
Noticed that it has been tagged 'Gay' ... none of the sexuality remains in my memory.
An informative novel recommended for readers of historical fiction in in historic Mexico.
This was a difficult book to finish ... humankind's capacity to trod on ...
Hope Nava will publish a sequel.
***
Here's a quote from near the end:
" ... What about the Americans? Their ambassador engineered this coup and Huerta is his creature. Wilson could guarantee Madero's safety.'
"A flash of anger crossed Gossen's placid features. 'The American ambassador takes the position that the fate of President Madero--to whom he is still accredited--is strictly an internal Mexican affair. He takes no position on the subject.'
"'That bastard!' Sarmiento said. 'Wilson brings down Madero's government and now he washes his hands of him.'
"'Do you know Ruben Dario's 'Ode to Roosevelt'?' the ambassador asked and then, without waiting for a reply, began to recite, 'You are the United States, future invader of Spanish America.' He tapped a heavy gold signet ring against the window. 'Nothing good comes out of the North,' he said. 'From that furnace of aggession and greed and self-righteousness. All of Spanish America feels its heat, but only Mexico roasts on its spit.'"
"A Roosevelt" (To Roosevelt) is a poem by Nicaraguan poet Rubén Darío. The poem concerns the involvement of the United States during the Separation of Panama from Colombia. Full text at review's end.)
***
The first paragraph :
"The first time Sarmiento saw the woman who would become his wife, he thought she was a nun. She rushed toward him across one of the fetid courtyards of Belem prison, where he had gone to find his father. She was clad in a long, dark dress he assumed was a nun's habit and her face, also like a nun's, was veiled. She called out to him urgently, 'Senor, Senor, are you a doctor?' He raised his medical bag in assent as she reached him, breathless. It was then he realized her costume was not that of a religious order because, although drab, the material was rich. The dress was a shimmering silk of midnight blue,* and the veil in the same shade dropped like a curtain from her bonnet and was a finely woven lace mesh that revealed only the shadowy contours of her face. Her appearance in the courtyard had attracted the attention of the inmates--dirty, barefoot men in tattered clothes, dark faces shaded by the broad brims of their high-peaked sombreros ..."
...
"'Take me to her,' he said.
"He followed her through a series of squalid courtyards. Open privies spilled their reek and a few mangy dogs lapped brackish water from fountains where nuns had dipped their pails when Belem
had been a wealthy convent in the seventeenth century. Ciudad de Mexico was then the crown jewel of New Spain. So regal were the edifices the Spanish had built on the ruins of the Aztec capital, Tenochtitlan, that a visitor had christened it the City of Palaces. Now, as the nineteenth century drew to a close, the ancient palaces had been abandoned, converted to mercantile uses or, like Belem, were in near ruins. In their place were the garish new public works of the government of the dictator, Porfirio Diaz, all shiny brass and Carrara marble." ...
... "The veiled woman gave him a bundle of fine linen, incongruous in these dank surroundings. He wrapped the child and handed him to her." ...
..."He found his father in a spacious room in the wing of the prison reserved for opposition politicians and journalists who criticized the government. Here they were kept for a few days or a few weeks in relative comfort until the dictator remembered them and ordered their release. There was no official censorship in Mexico, and the Constitution of 1857, which his father had helped write, guaranteed freedom of speech. The government tolerated the minimum of dissent required to satisfy the need of foreign observers for the illusion of a democratic Mexico. Sometimes, though, a journalist or a politician took the promise of free speech too seriously and found himself picked up by la seguridad, Diaz's secret police, and deposited in one of these cells, like an impertinent child sent to his room."
***
page 20 - "This is what Sarmiento had been unable to explain to the Romans he befriended on his travels. In their city, the imperial ruins were like the abandoned rooms in the family palazzo, places where their ancestors had lived lives different only in degree, not kind. But in Mexico, the stones beneath the hulking churches and palaces of the Spanish were the gravestones of an alien race whose men had been murdered and its women raped. The conquest had also robbed that race of its vitality. Each generation following the conquest was more servile and lethargic than the last until the Aztecs had devolved from plumed emperors to turkey herders in soiled loincloths. When Sarmiento told his Roman friends that his country was the product of rape, they had laughed gaily and replied, 'But all nation.' Perhaps so, he thought, but in Mexico the memory was burned into the stones and the air."
page 23 - " ... The family's titles go back to colonial times. Of course, I suppose she and her family should properly be called ex-nobles since we are a proper republic now,' he said, placing a mocking hand over his heart. 'After the French invasion their titles and an old palace were all they had left. The old marques--that traitor--sided with the French and their puppet emperor, Maximiliano. He was lucky he wasn't shot. Instead, his properties were confiscated and he was ruined. I heard for a while they were so hard up they were eating beans off of gold plates. But the old man was able to marry off his eldest daughters to various rich friends of our beloved president,' he continued. 'Nothing makes new money respectable more swiftly than a wife with a title and an old name. Sadly, he could not find any takers for the Condesa de San Juan.'"
(For an informative novel about the French Invasion, I suggest Chapultepec
Chapultepec
page 29 - "The flowering cross, for example. Graciela the baker, with hands like leather from decades of reaching into stoves, told Alicia that the stonemason who carved the cross had been from a wild tribe in the far north called the Yaquis. 'Nahautl, like us,' she explained, 'but when the rest of us came to Tenochtitlan, the Yaquis stayed behind in a river valley that was like the Garden of Eden. They worshipped the deer who up his life to give them meat to eat and hides for clothes. When the priests came and told them about Jesus, well, to the Yaquis, Jesus and the deer were the same and they converted.
"'Flowers are sacred to the Yaquis,' Alicia told Sarmiento, repeating the words Graciela had told her. 'They call heaven the flower world. They say that when Jesus was on the cross, flowers sprang up where his drops of blood touched the earth. That's why the artist carved flowers on the cross. For him they are the blood and resurrection of Jesus.'
"'The Yaquis?' Sarmiento said. 'The same tribe the government is fighting up in the north?'"
(For a novel featuring Yaqui enslavement ... I suggest Fontes' Centaur
Dreams Of The Centaur: A Novel
***
Here's a spoiler type summary from the University of Wisconsin press, the book's publisher. (I'm curious how UW came to that role.?)
"In the years before the Mexican Revolution, Mexico is ruled by a tiny elite that apes European culture, grows rich from foreign investment, and prizes racial purity. The vast majority of Mexicans, who are native or of mixed native and Spanish blood, are politically powerless and slowly starving to death. Presiding over this corrupt system is Don Porfirio Díaz, the ruthless and inscrutable president of the Republic.
Against this backdrop, The City of Palaces opens in a Mexico City jail with the meeting of Miguel Sarmiento and Alicia Gavilán. Miguel is a principled young doctor, only recently returned from Europe but wracked by guilt for a crime he committed as a medical student ten years earlier. Alicia is the spinster daughter of an aristocratic family. Disfigured by smallpox, she has devoted herself to working with the city’s destitute. This unlikely pair—he a scientist and atheist and she a committed Christian—will marry. Through their eyes and the eyes of their young son, José, readers follow the collapse of the old order and its bloody aftermath.
The City of Palaces is a sweeping novel of interwoven lives: Miguel and Alicia; José, a boy as beautiful and lonely as a child in a fairy tale; the idealistic Francisco Madero, who overthrows Díaz but is nevertheless destroyed by the tyrant’s political system; and Miguel’s cousin Luis, shunned as a “sodomite.” A glittering mosaic of the colonial past and the wealth of the modern age, The City of Palaces is a story of faith and reason, cathedrals and hovels, barefoot street vendors and frock-coated businessmen, grand opera and silent film, presidents and peasants, the living and the dead."
***
What was happening in Mexico in 1910 could be like enslaving Apache men, the women killed, and the children placed in orphanages. The Yaquis being cousin to the Apache.
page 154 - "'In the days before the Americans fought their civil war, there was a system of sanctuaries that helped the black salves escape from the southern part of the United States to Canada, where they were free. It was called the underground railroad. The sanctuaries were established by good Christians who knew that human slavery was abhorrent to the Lord. ...
"'For twenty years, Yaqui men have been deported from their homeland in Sonora and sold as slaves to the henequen haciendas, where are worked to death. Over time, we have created our own sanctuaries to help those who escape reach the American border. Our own underground railroad. This church is a station on that railroad. ..."
page 191 - "'It wasn't just the crowds,' Luis said softly. 'I saw it with my own eyes that Diaz's Mexico is a Potemkin village, Miguel. All facade with nothing behind it. I saw the real Mexico. The Mexico profundo where the poor are so hungry they eat grass and bark. I met Indians whose land is being devoured by Diaz's cronies, entire towns swallowed up, and the people reduced to peonage. I talked to Mexican railroad workers who are paid a fraction of what the American owners pay their own countrymen for the same work. And it's not just the poor or the laborers,' he continued. 'There are two generations of univeristy-educated men who cannot find work anywhere but on the lowest rungs of their professions because Don Porfirio's clique of eighty-years-olds squat at the top. The conditions of Mexico are ripe for revolution.'
"'Yet here you are in prison,' Miguel said."
" ... he had proposed extending new sewage lines into old neighborhoods, replacing the fetid tenements ... inoculating children ... impossible, too costly ... Instead the government spent a million pesos on a glass curtain designed by Tiffany for the stage of the new opera house. ... The government paid the expenses of the thousands of dignitaries from across the world who flocked to the city to witness the apotheosis of Don Porfirio Diaz on the occasion of the one-hundredth anniversary of Mexico's independence. The poor were swept off the streets of the central city and kept away by battalions of police who enforced the cordon sanitaire with billy clubs and mass arrests. Luis was right--Ciudad de Mexico was a Potemkin village, a make-believe European city designed for the tourists and the notable from abroad."
***
9/6/18 ... and what becomes Alicia, Miguel and the Yaqui fate?
***
"Ode to Roosevelt
It is with the voice of the Bible, or verse of Walt Whitman,
that we should reach you, Hunter!
Primitive and modern, simple and complicated,
with a bit of Washington and a bit of Nimrod.
You are the United States,
You are the future invader
the naive America who has Indian blood,
that still prays to Jesus Christ and still speaks Spanish.
You are a proud and strong exemplar of your race;
you are cultured, you are clever, you oppose Tolstoy.
And breaking horses, or murdering tigers,
you are an Alejandro Nebuchadnezzar.
(You’re a professor of energy,
as today’s madmen say.)
You think life is fire,
that progress is eruption;
where you put your bullet
you put the future.
No.
The United States is strong and big.
When it shakes there is a deep tremor
through the enormous vertebrae of the Andes.
If you clamor, you hear the roar of the lion.
Hugo said to Grant: “The stars are yours.”
(Just shining, rising, Argentine sun
and the Chilean star rises ...) You’re rich.
Join Hercules’ cult to Mammon’s;
and lighting the path to easy conquest,
Liberty raises her torch in New York.
But our America, which had poets
from the old days of Netzahualcoyotl,
you have saved in the footsteps of the great feet of Bacchus
panic in the alphabet learned a while;
who consulted the stars, that knew Atlantis,
whose name comes to resonate in Plato
Since the ancient times of your life
living light, fire, perfume, love,
America’s great Montezuma, from the Inca,
redolent of America by Christopher Columbus
Catholic American, Spanish American,
The America where noble Cuahtemoc said:
“I’m not a bed of roses” that America
trembles in hurricanes and lives in Love,
men of Saxon eyes and barbarous soul lives.
And dreams. And loves, and vibrates, and is the daughter of the Sun
Be careful. Live the American Spanish!
There are thousand of puppies loose Leon Spanish.
Be required, Roosevelt, being God himself,
Rifleman the terrible and strong Hunter,
order to keep us in your tight grip.
And, You may count it all, missing one thing: God!
September 30, 2021
This is not what I was expecting from Nava. I've read and loved his Henry Rios series (the original series), so I was interested to see how he'd handle a historical novel set in Mexico. However, I wasn't expecting it to focus on a straight couple, though there are (eventually) a couple of LGBT characters.
I did like the characters, especially Alicia and José, and what we see of Louis. Sarmiento eventually comes around to being a decent guy, though I never fully warmed to him, or to his relationship with Alicia. She was too good for him, and not because of her social status. The historical aspects were interesting. Corruption, coups and geopolitics though are not exactly topics I'm chomping at the bit to read these days, so I was disengaged with a lot of this, though it was written well. The sense of time was very well-done, and seeing how the Spaniards treated the Native tribes was hard to stomach at times. So it was a good, solid story but a little dry.
The narrator, Christian Barillas, does a decent job, but I'm not sure he quite fit the story. He did best when narrating José's parts, though I could simply think that because that was the part of the story I liked most.
I did like the characters, especially Alicia and José, and what we see of Louis. Sarmiento eventually comes around to being a decent guy, though I never fully warmed to him, or to his relationship with Alicia. She was too good for him, and not because of her social status. The historical aspects were interesting. Corruption, coups and geopolitics though are not exactly topics I'm chomping at the bit to read these days, so I was disengaged with a lot of this, though it was written well. The sense of time was very well-done, and seeing how the Spaniards treated the Native tribes was hard to stomach at times. So it was a good, solid story but a little dry.
The narrator, Christian Barillas, does a decent job, but I'm not sure he quite fit the story. He did best when narrating José's parts, though I could simply think that because that was the part of the story I liked most.
July 12, 2014
A wonderful book (and first of a planned family saga that follows Mexican history starting in 1897) that just came out of nowhere to take over my reading and one I literally couldn't put down until I finished it.
Following an unlikely couple:
handsome 30 year old and "middle class" doctor Miguel Sarmiento, whose father, personal physician to Benito Juarez is now in and out of prison for sedition against dictator Porfirio Diaz, but who has no interest in politics and who after a youth as a rake culminating in a tragic medical accident that cost two lives, was sent by his father indefinitely to Europe to get his degree and practice there only being able to return now after some 10 years when the last witnesses to his youthful crime passed away
smallpox scarred noblewoman Alicia Gavilan seemingly destined to live as an unmarried maiden and show herself only veiled in public and about whose tragic history we also learn relatively soon
A dedicated - almost fanatical "man of science" - and a woman of deep faith and piety, but somehow they are thrown together to marry and have a reasonably happy and successful married life and career - as Miguel teaches Alicia medicine and uses her as his assistant especially dealing with women patients but not only - while also having a beautiful but somewhat other worldly son Jose, obviously all until politics and events intervene in 1911
Helping his best friend and cousin Jorge Luis escape Mexico while hunted by the secret police for his homosexuality (at the time considered a bigger crime than murder especially when associated with relatives of the dictator with whom Luis fell in unwittingly at his "men only" club), Miguel is utterly disgusted by Luis' inclinations but Alicia is more accepting despite the sinful nature of that as preached by the Church and in time when Luis now a committed revolutionary and socialist returns to Mexico to bring social justice, Miguel and Alicia join him fighting for the "new order"
And of course stuff happens, the book is a page turner that as mentioned one cannot put down, while the ending is at a good stopping point, though of course leaving the reader wanting more
Highly recommended and a top 25 of the year
Following an unlikely couple:
handsome 30 year old and "middle class" doctor Miguel Sarmiento, whose father, personal physician to Benito Juarez is now in and out of prison for sedition against dictator Porfirio Diaz, but who has no interest in politics and who after a youth as a rake culminating in a tragic medical accident that cost two lives, was sent by his father indefinitely to Europe to get his degree and practice there only being able to return now after some 10 years when the last witnesses to his youthful crime passed away
smallpox scarred noblewoman Alicia Gavilan seemingly destined to live as an unmarried maiden and show herself only veiled in public and about whose tragic history we also learn relatively soon
A dedicated - almost fanatical "man of science" - and a woman of deep faith and piety, but somehow they are thrown together to marry and have a reasonably happy and successful married life and career - as Miguel teaches Alicia medicine and uses her as his assistant especially dealing with women patients but not only - while also having a beautiful but somewhat other worldly son Jose, obviously all until politics and events intervene in 1911
Helping his best friend and cousin Jorge Luis escape Mexico while hunted by the secret police for his homosexuality (at the time considered a bigger crime than murder especially when associated with relatives of the dictator with whom Luis fell in unwittingly at his "men only" club), Miguel is utterly disgusted by Luis' inclinations but Alicia is more accepting despite the sinful nature of that as preached by the Church and in time when Luis now a committed revolutionary and socialist returns to Mexico to bring social justice, Miguel and Alicia join him fighting for the "new order"
And of course stuff happens, the book is a page turner that as mentioned one cannot put down, while the ending is at a good stopping point, though of course leaving the reader wanting more
Highly recommended and a top 25 of the year
April 3, 2014
Before the battles of the Mexican Revolution started in 1912, Mexico City was known as the City of Palaces. Michael Nava's powerful recreation of the world which once was lingered long after I finished and closed the book. I put off starting another novel to stay within the world of Miguel Sarmiento, his wife Alicia Gavilan, and their families as long as possible. While obviously Nava has put in years of research, the resulting details of everyday life from 1897 through May 1913 accrued through his research fit seamlessly into his evocative prose. The historical characters came alive for me. I felt as if I could walk into the buildings he describes. A plot which tugged me to read the book in just three days combined with insight into what motivates his characters and descriptions of the world they lived in has me strongly recommending this book to other and giving it the highest rating possible.
In 1987 I met Henry Rios, the righteous lawyer who stars in Nava's seven mystery novels. I read all seven and several of them twice. The Nava of the Henry Rios mysteries was not a genre writer but a novelist who kept on getting better. The excellence of Nava's writing skills is on full display in "The City of Palaces." I re-read passages because of the beauty of his use of language. As a retired attorney who now teaches literature, I am particularly sensitive to the skills a writer uses to further his tale. I hope that the second book of the projected quartet will be published without a long wait.
In 1987 I met Henry Rios, the righteous lawyer who stars in Nava's seven mystery novels. I read all seven and several of them twice. The Nava of the Henry Rios mysteries was not a genre writer but a novelist who kept on getting better. The excellence of Nava's writing skills is on full display in "The City of Palaces." I re-read passages because of the beauty of his use of language. As a retired attorney who now teaches literature, I am particularly sensitive to the skills a writer uses to further his tale. I hope that the second book of the projected quartet will be published without a long wait.
September 4, 2014
Although called "The City of Palaces" this story is about one palace in Mexico City. It embraces a larger scope than one palace or one city because it alludes to a historical time (the late 1800s) and family in Mexico. I wish the book had a title that reflects its scope because there are other books with the title "The City of Palaces".
So my complaint is over and the praise begins. A gentle irony pervades the book. Doctor Miguel Sarmiento, whose doctor father constantly annoyed Miguel with his intense interest in politics, becomes rabid about the politics that take place in Mexico. He eventually reaches the point where he supports those who fight to better the country. Although the history of Mexico pervades the book, the love story between Miguel who may have been expected to choose a beautiful wife but choose Anicia Gavilan who had become ugly due to scars left by small pox holds high interest. Tension is provided by opposites: ugly vs handsome, religious vs atheist (she vs he), old vs young (the doctor’s child Jose vs his grandmother), Miguel vs his brother Luis.
Best of all, the hints about Jose’s sensitivities as we watch him grow up that give clues to a sureness that he is gay are just sufficient by this writer who has received a Lifetime Achievement Award for gay and lesbian literature. I welcome the follow-up novels he will write about this family as it enters and lives in the US.
So my complaint is over and the praise begins. A gentle irony pervades the book. Doctor Miguel Sarmiento, whose doctor father constantly annoyed Miguel with his intense interest in politics, becomes rabid about the politics that take place in Mexico. He eventually reaches the point where he supports those who fight to better the country. Although the history of Mexico pervades the book, the love story between Miguel who may have been expected to choose a beautiful wife but choose Anicia Gavilan who had become ugly due to scars left by small pox holds high interest. Tension is provided by opposites: ugly vs handsome, religious vs atheist (she vs he), old vs young (the doctor’s child Jose vs his grandmother), Miguel vs his brother Luis.
Best of all, the hints about Jose’s sensitivities as we watch him grow up that give clues to a sureness that he is gay are just sufficient by this writer who has received a Lifetime Achievement Award for gay and lesbian literature. I welcome the follow-up novels he will write about this family as it enters and lives in the US.
September 4, 2020
City of Palaces is one of the best books I've read this year (and I've read and reviewed 118 2020 titles). The novel is set in Mexico City at the turn of the 20th Century. Mexico has ousted the French who had set up their own rules for the country; Porfirio Díaz then became President and remained in office for decades using increasingly corrupt elections; a rebellion led by Madero ousted Díaz; the Madero himself was ousted. Obviously, this was a tumultuous period for Mexico—and the U.S. played its own role in the tumult.
The central characters, Miguel Sarmiento and Alicia Gavilán, are both committed to doing good in the world and each has their own tragedy underlying that motivation, but aside from those commonalities, they have little in common. He's the son of a political rebel, who was once respoected, but is now considered insane; she's the daughter of one of Mexico's oldest aristocratic families. He's a scientific rationalist and atheist; she's a devout Catholic. He accomplishes much good as a doctor volunteering in areas of the city where the poorest live, but builds few relationships with the people he serves; she has more friends, and more genuine friends, among the poor than she does among her own class.
Nava does wonders pulling together the sweep of history, the different world views and philosophies embraced by his central characters, and the relationship between those characters. I'm generally not one for "big" novels because they too easily become episodic or didactic. Nava avoids those pitfalls and presents a narrative that provokes thought and engagement.
This is a do-not-miss title for any reader of fiction. Its complexities and insights will reward on many levels.
I received a free electronic ARC of this title from the publisher via EdelweissPlus for review purposes. The opinions are my own.
The central characters, Miguel Sarmiento and Alicia Gavilán, are both committed to doing good in the world and each has their own tragedy underlying that motivation, but aside from those commonalities, they have little in common. He's the son of a political rebel, who was once respoected, but is now considered insane; she's the daughter of one of Mexico's oldest aristocratic families. He's a scientific rationalist and atheist; she's a devout Catholic. He accomplishes much good as a doctor volunteering in areas of the city where the poorest live, but builds few relationships with the people he serves; she has more friends, and more genuine friends, among the poor than she does among her own class.
Nava does wonders pulling together the sweep of history, the different world views and philosophies embraced by his central characters, and the relationship between those characters. I'm generally not one for "big" novels because they too easily become episodic or didactic. Nava avoids those pitfalls and presents a narrative that provokes thought and engagement.
This is a do-not-miss title for any reader of fiction. Its complexities and insights will reward on many levels.
I received a free electronic ARC of this title from the publisher via EdelweissPlus for review purposes. The opinions are my own.
June 10, 2015
I heard Michael Nava speak at a literature symposium this year. Nava is a Stanford educated attorney who has been at the forefront of legal issues affecting the LGBTQ community in California. He's also the author of several detective novels starring openly gay criminal defense lawyer Henry Rios. At the conference, Nava's keynote address focused on the insular and institutionally racist (and often sexist) world of publishing, and served as a battle cry for writers of color to band together to publish more important works and to call out discrimination in publishing where it occurs. I eagerly purchased the book at the conference to see if his personal passion for writing and publishing might also be reflected in his writing.
I wasn't disappointed. The City of Palaces is amazing.
Nava's careful research of the time period shows in the captivating story of physician Sarmiento and the disfigured but wealthy Ana Gavilan who becomes Sarmiento's wife and work partner. Though their opposing characteristics (she a devout Catholic, he an atheist) seem to initially suggest that their pairing is both improbable and unlikely, Nava weaves their budding romance and views of the impending revolution together into a intricate portrait of how war, power, and struggle for justice often unites people of disparate beliefs into a common cause. Sarmiento and Ana share a passion for working for justice for Mexico's poor which puts them in a precarious position as the Porfirio Diaz era comes to an end and revolution takes hold of Mexico City. Their relationship and intellectual compatibility serves as a lens through which to view the upheaval of the time period. The work is both a study of the period of revolution and its immediate effect on families as well as offering a close look at the treatment of gay men in the time period.
In Nava's work, I heard the echoes of the rhetoric of my own family about this time period. My maternal grandparents were both born in Mexico City at the beginning of the revolution. I recognized their world as they described it to me as I was growing up, and many of the ideas I heard them discuss emerged in Nava's characters and settings. In that way, I felt deeply connected to this work in a way that I don't often feel.
To me, the strength of a historical novel is in the details--how closely the text reflects both the time period and the historical record. It's in this way that Nava keeps the novel from becoming too melodramatic (although a certain of melodrama does appear, it's not overdone)--the characters emerge as fully-realized individuals with conflicts and struggles as well as divided loyalties, and the historical players are (at least in my understanding) faithfully rendered.
As I got closer to the end of the work, I slowed down, not wanting the story to end. Much to my relief, Nava indicates at the end that this book is the first of a quartet of novels on the revolution. I can't wait to read the next ones.
I wasn't disappointed. The City of Palaces is amazing.
Nava's careful research of the time period shows in the captivating story of physician Sarmiento and the disfigured but wealthy Ana Gavilan who becomes Sarmiento's wife and work partner. Though their opposing characteristics (she a devout Catholic, he an atheist) seem to initially suggest that their pairing is both improbable and unlikely, Nava weaves their budding romance and views of the impending revolution together into a intricate portrait of how war, power, and struggle for justice often unites people of disparate beliefs into a common cause. Sarmiento and Ana share a passion for working for justice for Mexico's poor which puts them in a precarious position as the Porfirio Diaz era comes to an end and revolution takes hold of Mexico City. Their relationship and intellectual compatibility serves as a lens through which to view the upheaval of the time period. The work is both a study of the period of revolution and its immediate effect on families as well as offering a close look at the treatment of gay men in the time period.
In Nava's work, I heard the echoes of the rhetoric of my own family about this time period. My maternal grandparents were both born in Mexico City at the beginning of the revolution. I recognized their world as they described it to me as I was growing up, and many of the ideas I heard them discuss emerged in Nava's characters and settings. In that way, I felt deeply connected to this work in a way that I don't often feel.
To me, the strength of a historical novel is in the details--how closely the text reflects both the time period and the historical record. It's in this way that Nava keeps the novel from becoming too melodramatic (although a certain of melodrama does appear, it's not overdone)--the characters emerge as fully-realized individuals with conflicts and struggles as well as divided loyalties, and the historical players are (at least in my understanding) faithfully rendered.
As I got closer to the end of the work, I slowed down, not wanting the story to end. Much to my relief, Nava indicates at the end that this book is the first of a quartet of novels on the revolution. I can't wait to read the next ones.
November 12, 2016
"The road to dictatorship is paved with temporary measures."
This is said by Damian, the (eventual) brother-in-law of Miguel Sarmiento, the male protagonist in Nava's epic family and political saga of Revolutionary Mexico. Damian, a duplicitous side character who ends up as one of many interconnected characters in this fascinating multilayered history of Mexico City from 1897 to the early 1920s.
Details of the real and fictional major and minor players in this saga, from the elite mansion-dwellers to the impoverished and oppressed Yaqui natives, are woven in between poetic descriptions of beauty, poverty, desire, and even the evocative descriptions of food, clothing and the scent of the city, from garden bouquets to acrid burning pyres.
And although I of course know of Nava's work in gay fiction, I didn't expect the varied and interconnected gay male characters, from a daring revolutionary and his native partner to the tender son of Miguel and his saintly wife Alicia.
All these elements shape the dramatic depiction of a family torn by the struggle to take on the seemingly endless corruption of politics. Although eloquent in it specificity of Mexican history, it remains timely.
This is said by Damian, the (eventual) brother-in-law of Miguel Sarmiento, the male protagonist in Nava's epic family and political saga of Revolutionary Mexico. Damian, a duplicitous side character who ends up as one of many interconnected characters in this fascinating multilayered history of Mexico City from 1897 to the early 1920s.
Details of the real and fictional major and minor players in this saga, from the elite mansion-dwellers to the impoverished and oppressed Yaqui natives, are woven in between poetic descriptions of beauty, poverty, desire, and even the evocative descriptions of food, clothing and the scent of the city, from garden bouquets to acrid burning pyres.
And although I of course know of Nava's work in gay fiction, I didn't expect the varied and interconnected gay male characters, from a daring revolutionary and his native partner to the tender son of Miguel and his saintly wife Alicia.
All these elements shape the dramatic depiction of a family torn by the struggle to take on the seemingly endless corruption of politics. Although eloquent in it specificity of Mexican history, it remains timely.
November 6, 2018
I picked this up based on a curiosity about the author, whom I had never read, and the subject matter, which is close to my heart. This well-researched, solid novel covers the crumbling years of the Porfirato and the beginnings of the Mexican Revolution, an uprising which arguably is still occurring. While the protagonist was chosen to carry the story through the salient points of the revolutionary period, it feels at times that the author would much rather (and perhaps would more successfully) detail the lives of his minor characters. Still, as a historical novel, The City of Palaces is interesting, well-paced and finely drawn.
October 7, 2020
Okay, let me confess. I lived in Mexico City and wrote a book of walking tours of the Centro Historico. Michael Nava captured the feel and look of the city so beautifully that I searched the Interweb for a period map so I could see exactly where he set his story since the street names all changed after the Revolution. I was completely hooked, as will anyone will be who cracks open this novel. "City of Palaces" is terrific.
The unlikely couple at the center are Dr. Miguel Sarmiento, a middle class fellow whose father has become a radical opponent of President Porfirio Diaz. His screeds start off logical and well argued but turn into a madman's ravings about half way through. Miguel shows up at the prison to bail his father out again and there meets Alicia Gavilan, an aristocratic young woman with a face destroyed by smallpox who is there helping women prisoners. It's 1897, and even though she has little money, no beauty and only a name, it's a scandal that she and the doctor would marry. They do, just in time for some of Mexico's most turbulent times.
Originally published in 2014, some other reviewers have said that it is part of a trilogy, which I certainly hope is true. Michael Nava builds a clear and dramatic telling of the early years of the Mexican Revolution, a complicated and messy affair even by revolutionary standards. As people dedicated to improving the living standards in their country, Alicia and Miguel are in a position to make their work pay off. "City of Palaces" ends in 1913 with almost a decade more of revolution to go.
Compelling characters and a magnetic sense of time and place make this novel a standout.
Thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for this reading delight!
~~Candace Siegle, Greedy Reader
The unlikely couple at the center are Dr. Miguel Sarmiento, a middle class fellow whose father has become a radical opponent of President Porfirio Diaz. His screeds start off logical and well argued but turn into a madman's ravings about half way through. Miguel shows up at the prison to bail his father out again and there meets Alicia Gavilan, an aristocratic young woman with a face destroyed by smallpox who is there helping women prisoners. It's 1897, and even though she has little money, no beauty and only a name, it's a scandal that she and the doctor would marry. They do, just in time for some of Mexico's most turbulent times.
Originally published in 2014, some other reviewers have said that it is part of a trilogy, which I certainly hope is true. Michael Nava builds a clear and dramatic telling of the early years of the Mexican Revolution, a complicated and messy affair even by revolutionary standards. As people dedicated to improving the living standards in their country, Alicia and Miguel are in a position to make their work pay off. "City of Palaces" ends in 1913 with almost a decade more of revolution to go.
Compelling characters and a magnetic sense of time and place make this novel a standout.
Thanks to Edelweiss and the publisher for this reading delight!
~~Candace Siegle, Greedy Reader
August 31, 2022
“The City of Palaces” is a nickname for Mexico City. This historical novel is rich with Mexico’s troubled yet textured history but rich also with carefully drawn characterizations, as well. Nava’s clear prose conveys not only an elegance difficult to match but also conveys the nuanced difficulties of human relationships. In Book 1, “The Palace of the Gaviláns,” (1897-1899) readers learn of an aristocratic dwelling that is now 300 years old; with its antique condition yet filled with significance for its family, it plays a substantial part throughout the novel, almost always a haven from violence or disruption. Readers learn of the love of a man for a woman whose looks are marred by a childhood bout with small pox. Even so, their respect for one another and their common interests allow them to marry. Their love deepens over time, spurred on by a strong sexual attraction for each other. They have one son, José, whose sensitive reflections and interests become a primary focus of the novel.
In Book 2, “The Apostle of Freedom,” (1909-1911), the novel skips through time to when the boy, José, is almost a teen. It is a time of political turmoil, as one man attempts to win the presidency by being in favor of democratic freedoms. Jose’s parents, his father an MD, his mother a volunteer nurse for the poor, work to support this man and help to get him elected. It is only the beginning of more trouble.
Book 3, “Tragic Days,” (1912-1913), unfurls the turmoil that occurs when this new president is ousted by force after a short while, thus altering the history of Mexico forever. Overall, the novel is a fine examination of this period of Mexican history, its difficulties with the indigenous populations (Aztecs being one), its lack of care for the poor, and its Spanish colonial and cultural traditions—a proud people whom Americans should know and care more about. By way of this story set prior to the Mexican revolution, readers have much to learn about our neighbors to the south.
In Book 2, “The Apostle of Freedom,” (1909-1911), the novel skips through time to when the boy, José, is almost a teen. It is a time of political turmoil, as one man attempts to win the presidency by being in favor of democratic freedoms. Jose’s parents, his father an MD, his mother a volunteer nurse for the poor, work to support this man and help to get him elected. It is only the beginning of more trouble.
Book 3, “Tragic Days,” (1912-1913), unfurls the turmoil that occurs when this new president is ousted by force after a short while, thus altering the history of Mexico forever. Overall, the novel is a fine examination of this period of Mexican history, its difficulties with the indigenous populations (Aztecs being one), its lack of care for the poor, and its Spanish colonial and cultural traditions—a proud people whom Americans should know and care more about. By way of this story set prior to the Mexican revolution, readers have much to learn about our neighbors to the south.
July 14, 2024
A big part of why I love historical fiction set in other countries is that they help me fill in gaps in my very America-centric United States education. These books invariably spur me to look up names and places and events that I don’t know so that I can get the full history that the novels allude to. So many novels have turned into cramming sessions on missed history. This is especially true of The City of Palaces, by Michael Nava. Even though my county shares an almost 2,000 mile border with Mexico, I know embarrassingly little about Mexican history. Nava’s novel dropped me into the end of dictator Porfirio Díaz‘ regime and the beginning of the Mexican Revolution. Nava made me feel like I was right there with the Sarmiento-Gavilán family as they lived through it...
Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss, for review consideration.
Read the rest of my review at A Bookish Type. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher via Edelweiss, for review consideration.
April 10, 2017
I'm really starting to love historical fiction, and more specifically, revolution-oriented historical fiction. Michael Nava's "The City of Palaces" follows very closely the actual history of the Mexican revolution, and the years immediately preceding. This is a compelling narrative that would provide any reader with a pretty strong understanding of how the Mexican Revolution unfolded.
Considering that the context of this story is politically complex, it's welcome that the main narrative and voicing is fairly straightforward and linear. Despite the fact that Mexico is unraveling around them, each of the few main characters gives you the time to fully understand them as people.
City of Palaces touches on issues relating to gender, sexuality, economic justice, social justice, and corruption in politics. In fact, now that I think about it, this story gives some context for understanding the issue of corruption in modern day Mexican Government.
Awesome read!
Considering that the context of this story is politically complex, it's welcome that the main narrative and voicing is fairly straightforward and linear. Despite the fact that Mexico is unraveling around them, each of the few main characters gives you the time to fully understand them as people.
City of Palaces touches on issues relating to gender, sexuality, economic justice, social justice, and corruption in politics. In fact, now that I think about it, this story gives some context for understanding the issue of corruption in modern day Mexican Government.
Awesome read!
February 19, 2015
3.5 stars
I came to this book through Nava's Henry Rios series which I discovered a few months ago and read in it's entirety. There's not many similarities between the two books plot wise but there is still Nava's strong sense of story telling and extensive vocabulary.
Nava references Bleak House in another one of his books and after that reference I read it. I was glad I had as he borrows a malady and a bit of character from that book for this one.
I liked the story enough but there were times my mind wandered and I wouldn't say I couldn't stop turning pages. Perhaps I just had other things in my life distracting me, I can't put my finger on it. I'm glad I read this but it didn't change my life.
I came to this book through Nava's Henry Rios series which I discovered a few months ago and read in it's entirety. There's not many similarities between the two books plot wise but there is still Nava's strong sense of story telling and extensive vocabulary.
Nava references Bleak House in another one of his books and after that reference I read it. I was glad I had as he borrows a malady and a bit of character from that book for this one.
I liked the story enough but there were times my mind wandered and I wouldn't say I couldn't stop turning pages. Perhaps I just had other things in my life distracting me, I can't put my finger on it. I'm glad I read this but it didn't change my life.
August 2, 2017
This book gave me a glimmer of understanding of modern Mexico of which my knowledge is woefully little. The book covers the late 1800s- 1913.
The armature for the story is a wealthy family. One of the daughter defies custom (read the book to find out why) and desires to help the poor and much abused indigenous population. So far so good. She marries and has an extraordinary marriage for the time frame in it's equality. It is through their marriage and lives that the political story unfolds. It was a bit heavy on the Catholic symbolism and ritual for my taste but is understandable given the time and place. The characters are very well drawn and the political situation was well described and not tedious at all. It is part of a supposed trilogy and I will read the next book.
The armature for the story is a wealthy family. One of the daughter defies custom (read the book to find out why) and desires to help the poor and much abused indigenous population. So far so good. She marries and has an extraordinary marriage for the time frame in it's equality. It is through their marriage and lives that the political story unfolds. It was a bit heavy on the Catholic symbolism and ritual for my taste but is understandable given the time and place. The characters are very well drawn and the political situation was well described and not tedious at all. It is part of a supposed trilogy and I will read the next book.
May 20, 2024
Exceptional writing. Fascinating characters and informative look at Mexico of the time.
September 20, 2021
The City of Palaces is a historical novel set during the political turmoil in Mexico at the end of the 19th century and beginning of the 20th. The action is mainly seen through the eyes of Miguel Sarmeinto and Alicia Gavilan. Sarmeinto is the son of a political agitator and Gavilan is a socialite dedicated to helping the poor of Mexico City.
The above description doesn’t do the novel justice. There is a lot packed into the sixteen years the novel covers. I wasn’t aware of the history of Mexico, certainly not to this detail. I found it curious that I found a lot of the political machinations very American; or, what I know of American history. Perhaps political maneuvering is the same everywhere.
Missing from most of the historical novels I have read is the presence of gay and queer characters. Nava, gay himself, known particularly for a series of mystery novels centered around a gay, latino criminal defense attorney, clearly did his homework as the detail of the locations and historic episodes is amazing.
One of the things I thought about during the novel is the presence of the gay characters and the notion put forth by some people in other situations that this novel may have an agenda. I can’t see it that way. Nava paid much more attention to historical events than he did to explaining, through his characters, how homosexuality might be viewed in the 19th century. If the gay characters had been, supposing, car mechanics or athletes, no one would accuse such a work of art of having an agenda for or against car maintenance or football.
There is one aspect I did find unique about the novel. Nava took several opportunities to discuss, in some detail, the feelings and actions between two people demonstrating their love for each other. This is not usually done in a historical novel in my experience. Sex, should the subject even come up, is dealt with off-camera and with a clinical detachment.
This is not a criticism. This is Nava’s novel; he can do with it as he pleases. What he has written – the first of a planned trilogy – is a detailed family saga of those that are swept up in the winds of time’s events. And it is a damned good novel.
The above description doesn’t do the novel justice. There is a lot packed into the sixteen years the novel covers. I wasn’t aware of the history of Mexico, certainly not to this detail. I found it curious that I found a lot of the political machinations very American; or, what I know of American history. Perhaps political maneuvering is the same everywhere.
Missing from most of the historical novels I have read is the presence of gay and queer characters. Nava, gay himself, known particularly for a series of mystery novels centered around a gay, latino criminal defense attorney, clearly did his homework as the detail of the locations and historic episodes is amazing.
One of the things I thought about during the novel is the presence of the gay characters and the notion put forth by some people in other situations that this novel may have an agenda. I can’t see it that way. Nava paid much more attention to historical events than he did to explaining, through his characters, how homosexuality might be viewed in the 19th century. If the gay characters had been, supposing, car mechanics or athletes, no one would accuse such a work of art of having an agenda for or against car maintenance or football.
There is one aspect I did find unique about the novel. Nava took several opportunities to discuss, in some detail, the feelings and actions between two people demonstrating their love for each other. This is not usually done in a historical novel in my experience. Sex, should the subject even come up, is dealt with off-camera and with a clinical detachment.
This is not a criticism. This is Nava’s novel; he can do with it as he pleases. What he has written – the first of a planned trilogy – is a detailed family saga of those that are swept up in the winds of time’s events. And it is a damned good novel.
January 4, 2021
I've been following Michael Nava since his first novels came out in the 80s. This is a new style for him and shows his increasing development and capability as a writer. Well researched this is the story of merging families and cultures at the turn of the last century in Mexico; the story of the Mexican revolution and its causes and results, the beginning of what could be called the Mexican diaspora. One of the more interesting side story is that of a gay man forced into exile in Europe but who returns to support Madero, the first of several revolutionary leaders who attempt to govern Mexico. Revolutions aren't new to gay people, we have always been there and here we are also. The story of the Sarmiento Gavilan family goes back to the origins of Mexico -- colonization by Europe, the marginalization and destruction of its native peoples, the blending of the two cultures but the wide separation of extreme wealth and extreme poverty of the two, and of course the Catholic Church, an instrument of both oppression and salvation. An epic family novel about a Mexican family not unlike Galsworthy's Forsyte Saga, but contemporary and Latino.
This book has been on my unread shelf (it keeps getting bigger) for several years. I wish I had gotten to it sooner; now I feel like I do waiting for George R.R. Martin and the next Game of Thrones volume. Nava is planning on at least two follow up novels to conclude the story and I am truly looking forward to them. Top quality writing and story telling.
This book has been on my unread shelf (it keeps getting bigger) for several years. I wish I had gotten to it sooner; now I feel like I do waiting for George R.R. Martin and the next Game of Thrones volume. Nava is planning on at least two follow up novels to conclude the story and I am truly looking forward to them. Top quality writing and story telling.
March 2, 2024
Read this in one long day of airplane rides and waiting for AAA to jump my car while I waited in the freezing weather at Hartford airport. At any rate I could relate to the many scenes of waiting anxiously for whatever will happen to happen.
Getting ready to travel to Mexico this week, so reading as much as I can, and this fit right in. I don’t really know anything about the Mexican revolution, so anything like this that helps it stick to my ribs is helpful. Nava has the habits of a mystery writer to highlight time and place, and this story helped me understand the importance of the castillo de Chapultepec as the gem of the city, and why everything is a colonia even though that no longer describes the area at all. When it’s 1910 and one character is running an operation out of their house in Coyoacán, it is referred to as a country area. 1910 was not that long ago, and that is a very central area in my mind!
Some other things that left an impression:
- the name checking of various monuments put up at the end of the Porfiriato, which are still some of the emblems of Mexico City
- how extremely long that era was, and how relatively easy it was to topple over…and how hard to get to a stable new regime (there is plenty more ground for future books here)
- the ongoing conflict and attempt to remove the Yaquis from their land, and the Yaqui settlement in Tucson (more cross border Mexican politics stuff)
Getting ready to travel to Mexico this week, so reading as much as I can, and this fit right in. I don’t really know anything about the Mexican revolution, so anything like this that helps it stick to my ribs is helpful. Nava has the habits of a mystery writer to highlight time and place, and this story helped me understand the importance of the castillo de Chapultepec as the gem of the city, and why everything is a colonia even though that no longer describes the area at all. When it’s 1910 and one character is running an operation out of their house in Coyoacán, it is referred to as a country area. 1910 was not that long ago, and that is a very central area in my mind!
Some other things that left an impression:
- the name checking of various monuments put up at the end of the Porfiriato, which are still some of the emblems of Mexico City
- how extremely long that era was, and how relatively easy it was to topple over…and how hard to get to a stable new regime (there is plenty more ground for future books here)
- the ongoing conflict and attempt to remove the Yaquis from their land, and the Yaqui settlement in Tucson (more cross border Mexican politics stuff)
March 12, 2020
This book reminds me of how much I like historical fiction. That the author has written several books featuring a gay detective makes it all the more intriguing.
Mexico has been and continues to be have a fascinating history, by turns tragic and inspirational. This book brings out the history in its full glory, with descriptions, especially in Mexico City, which give the reader an intimate sense of the place. From Alicia's palace, to the parish church in a neighborhood of poor indigenous people, to the floor of the senate and the desert towns, the history of early 1900's in Mexico. And he's populated the time with a diverse and complex set of people. Miguel, the doctor who unsuccessfully resists his political heritage, but marries the compelling Alicia, a strong and compelling woman of her time. Both Miguel and Alicia's young son and Miguel's cousin Luis bring in gender nonconformity in the context of the times, but only as one aspect of their characters.
At times, characters like Alicia and Miguel were drawn a bit too simplistically, or idealistically. However, the book was such a pleasure to read, I am very willing to overlook this. I highly recommend the book.
Mexico has been and continues to be have a fascinating history, by turns tragic and inspirational. This book brings out the history in its full glory, with descriptions, especially in Mexico City, which give the reader an intimate sense of the place. From Alicia's palace, to the parish church in a neighborhood of poor indigenous people, to the floor of the senate and the desert towns, the history of early 1900's in Mexico. And he's populated the time with a diverse and complex set of people. Miguel, the doctor who unsuccessfully resists his political heritage, but marries the compelling Alicia, a strong and compelling woman of her time. Both Miguel and Alicia's young son and Miguel's cousin Luis bring in gender nonconformity in the context of the times, but only as one aspect of their characters.
At times, characters like Alicia and Miguel were drawn a bit too simplistically, or idealistically. However, the book was such a pleasure to read, I am very willing to overlook this. I highly recommend the book.
November 14, 2020
A very insightful look into the fall of Porfirio Diaz, Madero, and the Mexican Revolution from the viewpoint of people of the Mexican aristocracy. It created a very real understanding of how people lived then and how they got caught up in the unfolding events. I was fascinated by his presentation of life then. His knowledge of how Mexico and its society was affected by European culture and thought and the way that it transformed the status quo there was very deep. Also it wasn't just history, the character development was just excellent. I was disappointed at the end when I finally had to leave the main characters I was so involved with them.
I was also disappointed when it ended because I was wanting to go ahead and learn more about what happened after Huerta took power, but then that was not what the book was about after all. Reading that the author is gay and his other books are about gay people made me really appreciate his very quiet introduction to how people discover their gayness, how they are perceived, and what life was like for gays at that time in history. Looking back now that is maybe the main thing I will take with me now that the book is done. All in all he did a wonderful job.
I was also disappointed when it ended because I was wanting to go ahead and learn more about what happened after Huerta took power, but then that was not what the book was about after all. Reading that the author is gay and his other books are about gay people made me really appreciate his very quiet introduction to how people discover their gayness, how they are perceived, and what life was like for gays at that time in history. Looking back now that is maybe the main thing I will take with me now that the book is done. All in all he did a wonderful job.
April 20, 2022
Beautifully Written, Meticulously Researched
This fabulous novel set in Mexico City from 1897-1913 is a wonderful read in so many regards. Descriptions of characters, settings and events are so visual it is like watching a movie. Descriptions of historic and political events are painstakingly researched. And the analysis of the centuries old conflict within the Mexican people (European v Indigenous) is most provocative. I have lived in Mexico City for the last 3 years and love it. The authors explanations of locations, people and events provided me many new insights. I hope, hope, hope this is just the first in a series. Cant wait to see what adventures are ahead for Jose.
This fabulous novel set in Mexico City from 1897-1913 is a wonderful read in so many regards. Descriptions of characters, settings and events are so visual it is like watching a movie. Descriptions of historic and political events are painstakingly researched. And the analysis of the centuries old conflict within the Mexican people (European v Indigenous) is most provocative. I have lived in Mexico City for the last 3 years and love it. The authors explanations of locations, people and events provided me many new insights. I hope, hope, hope this is just the first in a series. Cant wait to see what adventures are ahead for Jose.
October 16, 2023
I knew little about Mexican history before reading this; I learned a lot from the book about the Mexican Revolution in the early 1900s; something I had never heard of before. Nava shared many reasons for the state the country found itself in then, and may still exist. But even more than that the story is about Miguel and Alicia, a couple who appear to have nothing in common yet who marry and work for the betterment of the country and its people. The situation in the country is described in sometimes graphic detail. I enjoyed this book a lot and think I've gained perhaps a better understanding of the country and why it is the way it is.
January 5, 2022
This book mixes fiction so well with Mexican history that I had to check if this book wasnt based on true characters. Despite the characters not being real, Nava manages to capture the struggles of most people during the revolutions. I loved the humanization of the Yaqui, who even today are still being pushed out of their land by settlers. The book also displays the social barriers given to Mexicans based on gender, sexuality, and income - which up to this day still stand. Most importantly, Nava beautifully recounts the betrayal and carnage of the revolutions that ended with the hopes and dreams of many minorities in the country. I also loved the idea that Mexico is forever haunted by the Spanish conquest of Tenochtitlan.
February 9, 2022
I loved this book. It presents a well-written narrative of a family in Mexico during the late part of the 19th century and the early part of the 20th century. The backdrop is a period of revolutionary unrest in Mexico, a period of history that perhaps is not well known or studied by North American students. This is supposed to be the first of a trilogy of novels involving the same family - I certainly hope so. It interweaves political intrigue, social issues, family dynamics, the position of the Catholic Church, and the history of Mexico.
May 17, 2021
A Sweeping Story with Living People
This a fascinating, masterful retelling of a brutal period in Mexico’s history told from the very personal perspective of a family trying to make sense of war and other moral complexities of the world. Politics, theology, illness, social issues, ideals, corruption, values, and personalities clash and merge in an epic tale. The characters are vivid, the storytelling engaging. This book will leave touched and thoughtful.
This a fascinating, masterful retelling of a brutal period in Mexico’s history told from the very personal perspective of a family trying to make sense of war and other moral complexities of the world. Politics, theology, illness, social issues, ideals, corruption, values, and personalities clash and merge in an epic tale. The characters are vivid, the storytelling engaging. This book will leave touched and thoughtful.
January 5, 2019
This book grew on me. It started out slow and filled with cliches - the nobel woman falls in love with the stable boy, a philandering upperclass kid gets sent to Europe for medical school. No spoilers there. And the cliched characters are thin. However, I enjoyed the historical perspective of Mexico and understanding the events through these characters. There the cliche's kinda worked.
February 21, 2022
I have to own up and say I a big fan of the author's Henry Rios series and was keen to read another book by this competent author.
This book gave me insight into the turbulent history of Mexico in the early 20th C.
The writing was fluid resulting in each page unravelling the saga; good character development ...one had empathy for them all !
Await more by MN :: MORE Henry Rios !!!!
This book gave me insight into the turbulent history of Mexico in the early 20th C.
The writing was fluid resulting in each page unravelling the saga; good character development ...one had empathy for them all !
Await more by MN :: MORE Henry Rios !!!!
January 15, 2025
Set in revolutionary Mexico, it focuses on a family that lives in a decaying palace in the capital but chooses to side with the poor. The story is dramatic and carried me along; the prose is stiff and overly flowery. A good narrative and educational for those of us who know little about Mexican history.
August 24, 2017
Well done. I love the historical aspects of the novel. The structure is good, solid traditional novel. It tells an interesting story, not more. If you are looking for sophisticated language and story telling, this isn't.
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