Cristobel de Olid, a renegade soldier for Cortes, emerges from the woods 450 years later into the wilds of New York, where he is housed in an indoor prairie and slated to be sold to a wealthy gerontologist as the "oldest living man"

Reviews

At the center of this highly charged, densely allusive first novel is a primitive spirited out of the Nicaraguan jungle, who may or may not be Cristobal de Olid, a 480-year-old escapee from Cortes's army. His captor is Peter Krieger, a sleazy, fast-talking opportunist who is trying to sell the man he calls "It" to a mysterious American. From this intriguing transaction emerges a tale that unspools in ever-widening circles to encompass Matteo Lupi, an Italian ex-terrorist who escorts de Olid north; Hannah Burden, who houses them on the cattle ranch she runs secretly from a Manhattan warehouse; and Jonathan Berkeley, scion of a decaying New England family that is complex enough to merit a novel of its own. The author skitters back and forth across decades, continents and narrative voices with a speed that often renders his plot impenetrable, and Krieger's rambling comic meditations on everything from Diderot to Bullwinkle wear thin. But the scope and authority of Morrow's writing and the power of his bitter, death-haunted characters make this a notable debut, even when it stalls.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Krieger is simply a businessman, or so he explains his dark dealings as black marketeer of Central American national treasures. Now he is shipping a 400-year-old tribal chief to Owen Berkeley's home on the Hudson. He has a perfect plan, including a satchel of heroin, but he doesn't count on Berkeley's children interfering, his courier's catharsis, and his partner's double cross. Though an ambitious attempt to form a many-faceted text into a coherent whole around the mercenary Krieger, this first novel is tediously overwritten and burdened with plot lines that seem mere afterthoughts. A warehouse farm in Chelsea is an interesting idea, but Morrow can't make more of it than gratuitous self-indulgence. Not a good selection come Monday, come Tuesday, etcetera.Paul E. Hutchison, Pennsylvania State Univ., University Park
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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