Madewell Brown

by Rick Collignon

Overview

As recorded in Rick Collignon s second novel, Perdido, a tall black man with one arm longer than the other walked into Guadalupe, New Mexico one morning about 50 years ago, stayed pretty much to himself for seven years, and then walked back out of town. No one knew who he was or what became of him. Now, as his last act, an old man named Ruffino Trujillo tells his grown son Cipriano a story about what became of the black man. After Ruffino s death, Cipriano discovers an old canvas bag bearing the name of Madewell Brown. Inside are a hand-carved doll, an old blanket, an unlabeled photo of a Negro League baseball team, and a small, yellowing envelope that was never posted. Thinking it the least he can do, Cipriano mails the letter. When it arrives in Cairo, Illinois, it comes into the hands of a young woman named Rachael, who believes it is from her lost grandfather.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781932961652
Publisher:	Unbridled Books
Publication date:	05/01/2009
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.70(w) x 8.40(h) x 1.00(d)

Editorial Reviews

In this wheezy, melancholy tale, Collignon returns to the fictional New Mexico town of Guadalupe (from his previous novel, Perdido), this time by way of a young woman named Rachael. Rachael grew up an orphan in South Cairo, Ill., and carries on a grudging yet loving connection with an elderly man named Obie, who tells her about her grandfather (and his childhood friend), Madewell Brown. When Obie dies, he leaves her his memoirs of his and Madewell's glory days on an African-American baseball team. Meanwhile, in Guadalupe, an elderly man tells his son, Cipriano, about a long-ago desert encounter with a strange black man. Cipriano later finds the man's bag-emblazoned with the name Madewell Brown-stashed in the shed and pulls from it an unsent letter, addressed to Obie, which he drops in the mail. From there, the two stories begin to converge to sketch out Madewell's story, punctuated by Obie's too-nostalgic remembrances of baseball games past. It's decent enough, but there's nothing especially memorable about it. (May)

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Publishers Weekly

In his fourth novel in an acclaimed series that includes The Journal of Antonio Montoya, Perdido, and A Santo in the Image of Cristobel Garcia, Collignon returns to the fictional town of Guadalupe, NM, and continues the strange mystery of Madewell Brown, who arrived in Guadalupe one day in the 1950s, lived there quietly for seven years, and abruptly left. A bag with his name on it has been gathering dust in Ruffino Trujillo's garden shed until Ruffino's son Cipriano discovers it and unpacks a photo of a Negro League baseball team and a stamped envelope addressed to Obie Poole of Cairo, IL. Retired baseball player Obie has passed away, and the letter lands in the hands of his friend and caretaker, Rachael, who believes that Madewell is her grandfather. Obie's narrated flashbacks fill in the details as Rachael and Cipriano begin parallel quests to uncover the truth about Madewell's life and death and their ties to events kept hidden for decades. Straightforward prose and well-drawn characters, married to fragmented memories of racism and violence, make for a compelling tale. Think Tony Hillerman with a dash of Cormac McCarthy.
—Jenn B. Stidham

Library Journal