Introduction

Against a backdrop of rebellion and intrigue, love between Javier Carteña, commander of insurgent Mexican forces, and Calypso Searcy, an American novelist at the pinnacle of her career, sizzles with passion across a broad sweep of history. Encompassing time from the Conquest of the 1500s to the present, the story races across space as well, from the forests of Chiapas to the city of Paris. There, an international investigative reporter named Hill picks up the swiftly vanishing trail of Calypso’s disappearance, and unwittingly becomes involved in one of the great dramas of the twentieth century and one of the great love stories of any age.

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Excerpt

Hill, an international investigative reporter, has just met Calypso Searcy. He is instantly infatuated, only to learn that she is in love with someone else--a mysterious Mexican man whose name she refuses to reveal. Then, breakfasting at one of his favorite Parisian cafés, Hill makes an important discovery:

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What Calypso needs, Hill mused, tearing a croissant into bite-sized pieces, slathering them with butter and popping them into his mouth, is something to act as a seton, a horsehair stuck into a festering wound to make it weep, like his grandfather used to do. Something like a love affair--even a mundane one, with someone not tall, dark, handsome and mysterious, but tall, blonde, imposing and brilliant. Someone, for instance, like himself.

He could not clarify in his mind whether she was really serious about the man in question. All his probing had only led to further evasions. Her description of him conveyed his obdurate qualities--brooding, condemnatory and proud. Yet she also saw him as a charming lover, humorous, passionate and sensual. At each of these contradictory statements, Hill's mind inserted an obelus, indicating the need for further inquiry.

He’d hung on the least of her words, as any detective would collect pile from a carpet, random hairs from door hinges, or casts of shoe prints in mud. It was what had put him at the top of his field: he stalked clues, patient as a monastic awaiting epiphany.

Her voice had a soothing quality: he would jerk back into awareness, realizing he'd been calmed into ignoring important pieces of evidence. Was she practicing deliberate evasion?

Fortified by petit déjeuner, he bent over his new prize, a book he'd unearthed in the library at the Sorbonne, where he’d gone shortly after the doors opened that morning, looking for information on Mexico. He hadn't expected to find anything momentous, just something to assuage his need to know more about Calypso.

What he had found lay on the café table like a hunting trophy--a white rhinoceros or Tibetan snow leopard, something so rare that the hunter had never dared to dream it would ever cross his sights. Hill had brought it out of the library virtually unexamined to this, one of his favorite cafés, in order to savor his conquest fully.

It was a book by Javier Carteña, PhD, titled The Speaking Sword, purporting to explore the political, military, religious and social bases of power in Mexico. Hill had opened it in the library stacks, looking for a copyright date, since he was seeking only the most current information. But what he saw on the first page made his flesh crawl and his breath come short: the dedication, For Calypso.

He ran his finger down the table of contents, now, a buttery table knife still jutting from his fist. It looked to be a bit of everything from liberation theology and military strategies against the southern Indians to an in-depth analysis of the economic bases of the PRI and the depredations of the World Bank.

He opened at random and read a few lines. It was well and tightly written, if a trifle self-indulgent. It had a certain revolutionary tang he associated with the writings of Che Guevara or Fanon. It was assertive and anything but intellectually coy, a style geared to convince, to sway, or failing that, to kick you right in the teeth. Hill had to admit he liked the defiance and fierceness of the tone.

On sudden inspiration, he flipped the book over and cautiously opened the back cover. There, staring up from the flap of the dust jacket, was Dr. Carteña. Hill bent over the small black and white photo like a virologist discovering a new germ.

Okay.

Okay.

So he had to admit it.

The guy was gorgeous, even by the standards of a purebred out-West heterosexual male.

The face that stared back at him was handsome in the way that fighting bulls are-- full-boned, brave and powerful. The eyes did, yes they did indeed, smolder. The mouth was full-lipped and slightly drawn down in the corners, as if at any moment he might bark an order that would carry no compassion but strike one senseless like the stooping of a falcon. It was the face of a monastic--solitary, disciplined, tortured down deep.

Calypso had called him a "warrior-priest," his wife and children notwithstanding. A head of glossy black hair filled what was left of the photo.

Overall, it was a face beguiling in its power and, yes, its inscrutability. He hated using that trite word, but there it was.

Well, okay. So much for the Latin gigolo and the tight white pants. This was not the sort of man une femme d'un certain âge invited to a tea dance. He would be graceful but lack elegance, like a wild range stallion among trotters.

One could invent a theogony for him more accurate, psychologically, than the unvarnished truth: born to poor parents on a farm in the Mexican Sierra, the short bio noted. Something mythic touched this face, partaking both of the wisdom and the tragedy of the gods.

What had Calypso said about him? Had she mentioned that he had a doctorate?

Hill was sure she hadn't. Didn't she say she hadn't seen him in years? Yet here was this book, dedicated to her in . . . Hill searched the copyright page. In 1990. Only two years ago.

He sat back, sipped his café au lait and stared off down rue du Bac, toward Quai Voltaire. A wispy fog was seeping down the street from the river. Someone had taken a can of spray paint to the sign chiding DÉFENSE D' URINER SUR LE VOIE PUBLIQUE, which now exhorted one to pee in the streets. A stain beneath was evidence that the vandal had been the first to comply.

He buttoned the top button of his overcoat, gathered up the book and dropped a tip into the saucer. The first thing to do, of course, was to call the publisher.

He set off down the street quickly, smiling to himself. Now he was in his element!

Now, there was a scent to follow. view abbreviated excerpt only...

Discussion Questions

1. What does the title, Fiesta of Smoke, mean to you? How does the title relate to the observation about reality and illusion in the prologue?

2. What are the major themes of Fiesta of Smoke? If you were to recommend this book to someone else, how would you summarize it? What are the types and instances of love revealed by this narrative?

3. Which character do you prefer? Why? Is one voice more or less authentic than another? If you could go to lunch with only one of these characters, which one would it be? What would you like to discuss with that person,
while dining? What questions would you ask?

Weblinks

»	Susan Still's website
»	Publisher's Book Info

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Recommended to book clubs by 2 of 2 members.

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