The American conquest of California is the subject of Lawrence Coates's remarkable new novel, a tale rich in magical irony, fraught with caustic truths and wrenching insights into the human condition. When Commodore Thomas Jones and the crew of the National Intention land in Monterey believing themselves to be bringing freedom and democracy to the benighted Californios, they discover that history has preceded them, that cruelty, betrayal, greed, and lust are already well established there, and that far from existing outside of history, California is a battleground for several contending versions of the past. They also find that their own limitations and illusions are far more powerful than the message of hope they intend to deliver. The motley crew of the National Intention includes a chronically seasick poet who pens an epic account of the conquest of California without ever setting eyes on the place or leaving his sickbed; a wondrously endowed captain irresistible to all women but seeking only the one who can help him escape the dark truth of his own separateness; and a crafty ex-slave who plans to abandon ship to create a new family to carry on the timeless history of his people lost on the Middle Passage. The ship's quixotic master, Commodore Jones, dedicates his acts to his chaste beloved - a woman who long ago betrayed him to marry his more successful brother. And helping to shape all their fates is a beautiful fourteen-year-old girl who escapes an unwanted marriage to a decayed septuagenarian by weaving her own magical shroud. There is also a lively set of supporting characters-land-rich dons, traders, friars, and love-starved maiden aunts, as well as dispossessed Indians whose own bitter irony has been nurtured by history. And there is the land itself-empty, enigmatic, home to vast populations of wildlife and countless herds of cattle. The Master of Monterey is filled with heartbreaking irony and raucous energy-the story of the men who claimed the West and who, far from creating history, found themselves trapped within it.
