Book: The Zigzag Way by Anita Desai

Betony had a book with her when she was in Michigan and the author's last name was Desai, so the next time I went to the library, I found The Zigzag Way by Anita Desai. But then Maria said the first name of the author of Betony's book was not Anita. As it turned out, Anita is the mother of the author of the book that Betony had.

Anyway, this is one of those novels that one reads and learns a bit of history in doing so. The history here is the story of Cornish miners who came to work in the Sierra Madre copper mines in Mexico early in the 20th century, and whose careers ended with the turbulent times of Pancho Villa and Zapata and the revolution.

Eric is a rather dreamy young American who only has a murky idea of his Cornish ancestry and, almost by default, finds himself in the Mexican village where his grandparents lived while his grandfather worked in the mines.

It is the eve of the Festival of the Dead when Eric arrives. He has unsuccessfully tried to get information from Dona Vera, an eccentric old woman living in a refurbished hacienda nearby. He then tries in unconvincing ways to elicit more information from those he meets. While I liked the descriptive passages, the characters were not all that credible. Eric seems without enough curiosity; Dona Vera seems incapable of doing what she has done, given her shadowy past in Europe.

But I did learn some of Mexican culture and history and the book is well-written.