Angels in Tesuque: A Novel - Softcover

Glasco, Michael

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0865340714 ISBN 13: 9780865340718

Publisher: Sunstone Press, 2016

Synopsis

On Christmas Eve, snow falls softly on the small adobe house perched in a field on the edge of the pueblo. Young Ben Touchstone, a half-breed, feels a tear snake past his cheekbone to his mouth. Born with pale skin, straw colored hair and cobalt eyes, his sad expression is reflected in the window. Rejected by the pueblo, he also feels the pain of knowing he is regarded as an oddity by anglos. Even the tourists on the plaza in Santa Fe cast curious glances. Ben feels forsaken in a strange limbo between the cultures. That night, in the mysterious chapel at Chimayo, he is startled and bewildered by the majestic appearance of his angel who promises Ben she will intervene and counsel him at every crossroad of his life. But does she? For many years Ben is puzzled by her absence. Will he be able to discern whether people in his life have been sent by the angel, or are they dark forces dispatched by some demonic being? Moving between the abject poverty of Tesuque pueblo and the wealthy social life of Santa Fe, Ben is constantly confronted with choices, choices he alone must make. Only in the final pages of the novel does Ben comprehend the significance and fulfillment of the angel's mysterious promises made thirty years earlier in the chapel at Chimayo. * * * * * Michael Glasco is a native of Dallas, Texas, and received his undergraduate degree in journalism and his masters degree from Southern Methodist University where he taught photography and film. He has also been a commercial photographer with assignments throughout the United States, Europe, North Africa and the Middle East. This is his first published novel. * * * * * "Glasco keeps his sensitive hero on the right track through costly lessons." -"Publishers Weekly"

About this title

From the Author:

author pleased with "Publishers Weekly" review & book tour
This being my first novel to be published,I was obviously thrilled to have been reviewed so well in the September 18, 1995 issue of "Publishers Weekly." Following the review, my wife and I embarked on a multi-city book signing tour which included stops in Santa Fe, New Mexico(the area in which the novel is set),plus signings in Phoenix, Los Angeles, San Francisco, Seattle, then on to signings in Dallas, Houston, Austin and San Antonio. For many years my family travelled to Santa Fe, and I have always been intrigued by the ancient culture of the Pueblo Indians of northern New Mexico. Research for the novel was very exacting and thorough. The people of Tesuque Peublo (where most of the novel is set) were extremely helpful, even allowing me to take many photographs which I later used in depicting the people and their enviornment.

After the tour, I was pleasantly struck by the broad range of ages my novel appealed to. From teenagers,to people in their sixtie! s and seventies mentioned the book was "uplifting" and many made reference that if produced, it would make a "beautiful" and "thought provoking" motion picture. I had always thought so, even during the early stages of writing the book. The hard cover sold out within a few months, but I'm told the "trade" soft cover is still avaialable nationwide. If you are interested, the review I referred to in "Publishers Weekly" follows.

"In this earnest first novel, Glasco juggles the miraculous realm of angels and spirits and the quitidian world of racism and politics while charting one man's search for identity and meaning. Born in a pueblo north of Santa Fe to a Tesuque Indian father and a white mother, Ben Touchstone rises out of poverty and a broken home, endures the taunts of classmates who call him "half-breed" and strives to become New Mexico's first Native American U.S. Senator. But Ben's climb to sucess is ! marked by moral compromise, due partly to his naive misjudg! ment of evel men--a tendency predicted by his guardian angel, who appears before a young Ben in a Catholic church on Christmas Eve. Growing up, Ben must cope with a jealous, alcoholic younger brother who vows to destroy him and with an abusive, drunken father who abandons the family when Ben is 13. A gentle old man called Two Crows, and Fernando, a groundskeeper at school, watch over Ben and save his life; that they may actually be otherwordly spirits is strongly intimated in the denouement, when Ben's angel reappears. Ben becomes an oil company executive and declares his intention to run for the U.S. Senate. He is threatened by blackmail and nearly betrays the Tesuque Indians, but Glasco keeps his sensitive hero on the right track through costly lessons. Ben benefits a little too easily from the grace of divine interventions; whether or not they're grounded in Native tradition, they function in this novel as a recurrent deus ex machina.---"Publishers Weekly," Se! ptember,18,1995.

About this edition

• Publisher: Sunstone Press
• Publication date: 2016
• ISBN 10: 0865340714
• ISBN 13: 9780865340718
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 158