Ariel’s Crossing
By Bradford Morrow
Nuclear weapons, family ties, family lies and a spiritual connection to land — it seems like an awful lot to cram into one book. But Bradford Morrow weaves these themes seamlessly into a multilayered tale in his latest novel, Ariel’s Crossing.
The dust jacket of the book says that the tale is supposed to be about Ariel Rankin, who learns that the man she’s always known as her father was not, in fact, the sperm donor. Ariel’s journey to find her real father gets top billing on the flap but the other characters in the novel are much more compelling. There’s Franny Johnson, a young runaway who moves to the rustic town of Gallup, gives herself a new name and a rewrites her history only to find that it’s not only possible to go home again, sometimes it’s vital. Then there’s Kip Calder, Ariel’s natural father, who inherited the guilt of his nuclear scientist father and spent a lifetime trying to expel it. The characters are all so complex and well drawn that it’s easy to get immersed as everyone stumbles toward their own route to self-discovery.
The small New Mexico town of Nambe is the perfect setting for juxtaposing the ranchers who make their living from the land and the weapons the government creates to destroy it. The early nuclear discoveries of the 1950s bring the characters together, break them apart and pull them back together again in new configurations with a force that even scientists couldn’t have anticipated.
Added to the mix is some Gabriel Garcia Marquez-style mysticism and a heavy sense of history, making Ariel’s Crossing an engrossing summer read you don’t have to be embarrassed to be seen reading on the beach.
—Rochelle Renford
This article appears in Jun 12-18, 2002.
