The Toe Bone and The Tooth: An ancient Mayan story relived in modern times: leaving home to come home - Softcover

Prechtel, Mart�n

4.54

97 ratings by Goodreads

9780007142682: The Toe Bone and The Tooth: An ancient Mayan story relived in modern times: leaving home to come home

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0007142684 ISBN 13: 9780007142682

Publisher: Thorsons, 2004

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A previously unpublished Mayan myth, gifted to Mart�n Prechtel by village elders, forms the unique backdrop to Prechtel's own untold story, from his chilling escape with his family from Guatemalan death squads in the mid-1980s, to how he has continued to live out the spirit of the myth in the alien context of modern life in the US.

Sales Handles
� Secrets of the Talking Jaguar and Long Life, Honey in the Heart, Prechtel’s previous books, continue to increase in sales in the US
� Relaunch of the two previous books in the UK in November 2002 will help to strengthen the profile of Prechtel and republicise Toe Bone and the Tooth
� In the tradition of Paulo Coelho, Carlos Casteneda and Gabriel Garcia Marquez.

Audience:
Fans of spiritual fiction (see above). People with an interest in Latin America. Already well known, Prechtel’s writing has the potential to breakthrough into the mainstream.

Competition:
Martin Prechtel’s story is unique, however the nearest competition in the spiritual fiction field would be Paulo Coelho and Carlos Casteneda

Author:
� Prechtel’s events in the past two years have all been filled to capacity, with between 250-400 people attending his talks.
� Prechtel was Honoured Guest at Shakespeare’s Globe Theatres Spearshaker Talk in 2000
� Author travels continuously across Europe and the US, teaching, lecturing and running workshops, and gives regular interviews on radio and TV
� His recent writers' workshops in New Mexico have sparked the interest of both the UN and UNESCO, as well as tribal governments of Canada and the US, interested in his ongoing campaign to preserve the ancient traditions of all indigenous peoples.

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Review:

Endorsements:

Praise for Secrets of the Talking Jaguar:
"It's a precious thing, this book. I've never known another like it... it is a treasure house of language, in service to life." —Robert Bly, author of Iron John

"The Mayan Gods, who hold eloquence above all else, must surely be pleased with this soul, who in this lifetime is named Mart�n Prechtel." —Clarissa Pinkola Est�s, Ph.D., author of Women Who Run With Wolves

From the Back Cover:

'The Toe Bone and the Tooth' is a literary masterpiece in honour of oral native storytelling and the indigenous heart of every person. Though easily read as a logical third in sequence with Martin Prechtel's other two legendary books, 'Secrets of the Talking Jaguar' and 'Long Life, Honey in the Heart', it also stands on its own as a classic work of beauty and adventure.

'Gaspar Culan the younger did not believe the Sun was a God...neither was the earth a sky for another world beneath, nor was it alive at all...' Thus begins the beautifully narrated, romantic epic of Martin Prechtel's search for the 'deer-like look in a woman's eye' and his dramatic getaway with his family against impossible odds during his last years in war-torn Guatemala.

A story within a story within a story – the apex in Prechtel's autobiographical trilogy – 'The Toe Bone and the Tooth' is an epic adventure that begins in the 19th century Guatemalan highlands and ends in the semi-arid foothills of the Sangre de Cristos mountains of New Mexico. In between lay tribal memory, the smell of mule caravans, the fury of the Gods, man-eating birds, bare-footed land moguls, forbidden roses, religious trials and unhappy love affairs, bullets and crenelated palaces, polyester and high heels, guerrillas and suburbs, international arms sales, the hope and losses of the diasporas, the amnesia of modernity, and Holy Remembrance forced to survive homeless under bridges.

As a political exile within the borders of Guatemala, then as a spiritual and cultural exile within the confines of the United States, Prechtel tells a tale of irony and beauty where chaos, terror, love, magic, and the unexpected live side by side as fingers on the same hand that curl around a cup holding the wine of one man's life.

Rooted in an ancient mythology passed ritual on to him by a magical generation of Tzutujil Maya now gone, Prechtel reminds us that these kinds of stories, if forgotten, will still be lived out in our daily lives but can help us live when they are consciously remembered.

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