The Mapmaker's Opera - Softcover

Bea Gonzalez

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007207794 ISBN 13: 9780007207794

Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd, 2006

Synopsis

In the tradition of Allende, this is a magical novel, written in the form of an opera, and set in Seville and Mexico in the late 1800s.Act I opens in Seville. Emilio has been forced by his overbearing mother into the priesthood. Monica is a governess in a wealthy household who falls pregnant by the head of the house. A chance meeting in Seville cathedral suggests a solution to both their predicaments they decide to marry, though it is not a love match. Emilio raises Monica's son Diego as his own, and they form a close bond over their mutual love of language, books, maps and birds. When Emilio dies, Monica reveals that he was not Diego's father. She grows ever more embittered and eventually dies, leaving Diego to pursue his true calling his love of birds.Act 2 follows Diego's life in Mexico his apprenticeship to an American who is mapping the birds of Mexico; his love for Sofia, the beautiful, independent daughter of a Mexican farmer; and his obsession with saving the Passenger Pigeon from extinction. The cities of Seville and Mrida are so central to the narrative, and evoked so beautifully, that they are almost characters themselves.Taking in many of the stock characters that appear in the best operas the philanderer, the wronged wife, the harassed servant, the star-crossed lovers The Mapmaker's Opera is an original and magical novel which will appeal to lovers of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Isabel Allende.

About this title

About the Author

Bea Gonzalez was born in Spain and emigrated to Canada as a child. She studied in Spain, Toronto and London and now lives in Toronto with her husband and children. The Mapmaker's Opera is her second novel.

From Publishers Weekly

Colorful, exotic birds enrapture the protagonists of this lyrical early 20th-century love story about the life of bird lover, artist and mapmaker Diego Clemente. As soon as Diego, the adoptive son of a Spanish bookseller, first comes across John James Audubon's hand-colored Birds of America, he is smitten with ornithology. When the opportunity to travel to the Yucatán to work with American scientist and author Edward Nelson presents itself, Diego promptly signs up and, once in Mexico, falls in love with his free-spirited, bird-enthusiast female counterpart, Sophia Duarte. Despite Sophia's meddlesome relatives and bumbling would-be suitor, Sophia and Diego bond. With revolutionary rumblings in the background, things come to a tense head when a workers' uprising threatens two of the world's only remaining passenger pigeons, which are being held by a greedy local plantation owner. The book comes to a tragic close that still manages to hold out a glimmer of hope. Rich descriptions of Seville and Mexico aid in creating a believable tale of romance and revolution. (Aug.)
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Edition details

• Publisher: HarperCollins Publishers Ltd
• Publication date: 2006
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0007207794
• ISBN 13: 9780007207794
• Binding: Paperback
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 305