“Our people are survivors,” Calliope’s great-grandmother once told her of their Puebloan roots—could Bisabuela’s ancient myths be true?Anthropologist Calliope Santiago awakens to find herself in a strange and sinister wasteland, a shadow of the New Mexico she knew. Empty vehicles litter the road. Everyone has disappeared—or almost everyone. Calliope, heavy-bellied with the twins she carries … twins she carries inside her, must make her way across this dangerous landscape with a group of fellow survivors, confronting violent inhabitants, in search of answers. Long-dead volcanoes erupt, the ground rattles and splits, and monsters come to ominous life. The impossible suddenly real, Calliope will be forced to reconcile the geological record with the heritage she once denied if she wants to survive and deliver her unborn babies into this uncertain new world.
Rooted in indigenous oral-history traditions and contemporary apocalypse fiction, Trinity Sight asks readers to consider science versus faith and personal identity versus ancestral connection. Lyrically written and utterly original, Trinity Sight brings readers to the precipice of the end-of-times and the hope for redemption.
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J. Givhan weaves a dystopian supernatural tale as well as New Mexican Puebloans weave their baskets. A catastrophe like the Manhattan Project and the nuclear Trinity test occurs wiping out populations, leaving some crazed; some lost. Ancestry, Faith, Myth and Science all converge into a fast-paced thrill ride for survivors. This is a love story on so many levels. Impeccably researched, NM has never been seen as Enchanted or Mysterious. Loved it.
Couldn’t finish it. Too “out there” while being rather predictable at the same time.
This beautiful book is like nothing I’ve ever read, but if I had to compare it to something, I’d say it’s THE LEFTOVERS meets GODS OF JADE AND SHADOW. Calliope Santiago, an anthropologist and college professor, sees a “shock of light” on her drive home, passes out, and when she awakes, it appears as if she’s entered a post-apocalyptic world. Almost everyone has disappeared (including her husband and son), empty cars clog the roads, and the long-dormant volcano near her home is erupting. As Calliope, pregnant with twins, flees for safety, desperate to find her missing family, she joins other survivors, and embarks on a heart-pounding journey across a shifting, impossible landscape, amidst mythic monsters come to life. I loved this book so much. The prose is gorgeous (which is no surprise; I’ve long been a fan of Jennifer Givhan’s poetry), and the story itself is action-packed, perpetually moving and throwing new adventures and obstacles at its characters. I enjoyed how the book grappled with the contradictions—and sometimes intersection—between science and faith, and I loved how the indigenous myth and folklore vividly sprung to life in Givhan’s skillful hands. At its heart, this wildly imaginative, stunningly inventive story is about a woman who comes to know herself—her strength, her place in the world, her connection to her ancestors—and in giving her that journey, Jennifer Givhan has created a fierce and deeply admirable heroine who readers will find difficult to forget.
Calliope awakens after what she suspects is an earthquake, and everything that is supposed to be isn’t. She can’t find her family, in fact, there aren’t many people around at all with the exception of her neighbor’s daughter Eunjoo. Eunjoo seems to know a lot for a 6-year-old, but Calliope sends a lot of time placating her rather than actually listening to her.
Then there’s Mara, who is desperately looking for her girlfriend Trudy, who is Calliope’s aunt. She’s running into a lot of the same thing’s Calliope is, the only difference is this is something that has happened to Mara before, several decades previous. Both women must fight to stay alive in an ever-changing world and find a way to return to their families.
So I didn’t care much for Calliope. I understand that she’s a scientist and that her beliefs are rooted in facts, but when you’re faced with situation after situation of the unbelievable, there comes a point when you have to accept that your previous truths no longer apply. I also didn’t much care for how Givhan felt the need to always point out race, “middle-aged white man” and “embraced the white girl”, and on, it just wasn’t needed, especially after we had already met these people.
When I take out the few things I didn’t like, there is a lot to like in Trinity Sight. I especially loved Eunjoo and her ability to look beyond, she was wise beyond her years and made for an exceptional character. The book is steeped in Zuni folklore, and its story and ending are based around the belief that the lore is more than just that. It blends science and lore in a magical and fantastical tale, that once you’re ready to believe, becomes believable. The writing was excellent and the story was well told.