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by Isabel Allende & translated by Margaret Sayers Peden ‧ RELEASE DATE: May 4, 2005

Allende’s tale risks but resists descending into melodrama at every turn. The up-to-date, even postmodern ending makes for a...

A graceful imagining of the saber-wielding, justice-dispensing freedom fighter of yore.

Children of the ’50s may happily remember Guy Williams’s TV portrayal of the legendary Zorro, who carved his signature initial into his enemies’ flesh with the point of his sword and kept the entire Spanish army in Alta California busily searching for him. Latter-day Californian Allende ( Kingdom of the Golden Dragon , 2004, etc.) provides a backstory that brims with modern concerns: In her hands, Zorro is an ever-so-slightly tormented revolutionary whose sense of justice comes from the accident of his birth. The child of a Spanish officer and a Shoshone Indian woman, Diego de la Vega grows up with a profound knowledge of the injustices wrought by Europeans on California’s native peoples. He takes his vulpine identity— zorro is Spanish for "fox"—early on, after a fox delivers him from danger; says his grandmother, helpfully, "That zorro is your totemic animal, your spiritual guide. . . . You must cultivate its skill, its cleverness, its intelligence." He does, reaching adolescence "with no great vices or virtues, except for a disproportionate love of justice, though whether that is a vice or a virtue, I am not sure." A Rousseauian child of nature, de la Vega travels to Spain to acquire a continental education. Becoming radicalized in the bargain, he defies the country’s Napoleonic rulers and joins an underground alliance to battle them, then takes the fight back to America. But first de la Vega must endure being shanghaied by pirates, who, neatly enough, haul him before the legendary über -pirate Jean Lafitte for a parlay. He acquires yet more education in the bayous, then makes for California once more to visit mayhem on corrupt officialdom on behalf of truth, justice and the Spanish way of life.

Pub Date: May 4, 2005

ISBN: 0-06-077897-0

Page Count: 400

Publisher: HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Feb. 15, 2005

HISTORICAL FICTION

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BOOK REVIEW

by Isabel Allende ; translated by Frances Riddle

by Isabel Allende

THE NIGHTINGALE

by Kristin Hannah ‧ RELEASE DATE: Feb. 3, 2015

Still, a respectful and absorbing page-turner.

Hannah’s new novel is an homage to the extraordinary courage and endurance of Frenchwomen during World War II.

In 1995, an elderly unnamed widow is moving into an Oregon nursing home on the urging of her controlling son, Julien, a surgeon. This trajectory is interrupted when she receives an invitation to return to France to attend a ceremony honoring  passeurs : people who aided the escape of others during the war. Cut to spring, 1940: Viann has said goodbye to husband Antoine, who's off to hold the Maginot line against invading Germans. She returns to tending her small farm, Le Jardin, in the Loire Valley, teaching at the local school and coping with daughter Sophie’s adolescent rebellion. Soon, that world is upended: The Germans march into Paris and refugees flee south, overrunning Viann’s land. Her long-estranged younger sister, Isabelle, who has been kicked out of multiple convent schools, is sent to Le Jardin by Julien, their father in Paris, a drunken, decidedly unpaternal Great War veteran. As the depredations increase in the occupied zone—food rationing, systematic looting, and the billeting of a German officer, Capt. Beck, at Le Jardin—Isabelle’s outspokenness is a liability. She joins the Resistance, volunteering for dangerous duty: shepherding downed Allied airmen across the  Pyrenees to Spain. Code-named the Nightingale, Isabelle will rescue many before she's captured. Meanwhile, Viann’s journey from passive to active resistance is less dramatic but no less wrenching. Hannah vividly demonstrates how the Nazis, through starvation, intimidation and barbarity both casual and calculated, demoralized the French, engineering a community collapse that enabled the deportations and deaths of more than 70,000 Jews. Hannah’s proven storytelling skills are ideally suited to depicting such cataclysmic events, but her tendency to sentimentalize undermines the gravitas of this tale.

Pub Date: Feb. 3, 2015

ISBN: 978-0-312-57722-3

Page Count: 448

Publisher: St. Martin's

Review Posted Online: Nov. 19, 2014

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2014

HISTORICAL FICTION | FAMILY LIFE & FRIENDSHIP

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THE TATTOOIST OF AUSCHWITZ

by Heather Morris ‧ RELEASE DATE: Sept. 4, 2018

The writing is merely serviceable, and one can’t help but wish the author had found a way to present her material as...

An unlikely love story set amid the horrors of a Nazi death camp.

Based on real people and events, this debut novel follows Lale Sokolov, a young Slovakian Jew sent to Auschwitz in 1942. There, he assumes the heinous task of tattooing incoming Jewish prisoners with the dehumanizing numbers their SS captors use to identify them. When the Tätowierer, as he is called, meets fellow prisoner Gita Furman, 17, he is immediately smitten. Eventually, the attraction becomes mutual. Lale proves himself an operator, at once cagey and courageous: As the Tätowi erer, he is granted special privileges and manages to smuggle food to starving prisoners. Through female prisoners who catalog the belongings confiscated from fellow inmates, Lale gains access to jewels, which he trades to a pair of local villagers for chocolate, medicine, and other items. Meanwhile, despite overwhelming odds, Lale and Gita are able to meet privately from time to time and become lovers. In 1944, just ahead of the arrival of Russian troops, Lale and Gita separately leave the concentration camp and experience harrowingly close calls. Suffice it to say they both survive. To her credit, the author doesn’t flinch from describing the depravity of the SS in Auschwitz and the unimaginable suffering of their victims—no gauzy evasions here, as in Boy in the Striped Pajamas . She also manages to raise, if not really explore, some trickier issues—the guilt of those Jews, like the tattooist, who survived by doing the Nazis’ bidding, in a sense betraying their fellow Jews; and the complicity of those non-Jews, like the Slovaks in Lale’s hometown, who failed to come to the aid of their beleaguered countrymen.

Pub Date: Sept. 4, 2018

ISBN: 978-0-06-279715-5

Page Count: 272

Publisher: Harper/HarperCollins

Review Posted Online: July 16, 2018

Kirkus Reviews Issue: Aug. 1, 2018

RELIGIOUS FICTION | HISTORICAL FICTION

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by Heather Morris

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Elena Square Eyes

Thoughts of a film fan, reader and geek, review: zorro by isabel allende.

My knowledge of the character Zorro solely comes from the films starring Antonio Banderas, especially The Mask of Zorro (1998) so this was a nice insight into the potential origin story of the masked vigilante. In the original stories, Zorro was already a hero for the downtrodden, so this book is more about the boy who would become Zorro.

I really enjoyed the historical setting of this book. It spans from 1790-1815 and takes place in both California and Barcelona. I knew little about the history and politics of late-eighteenth/early-nineteenth century California and Spain, especially how the California was a Spanish territory and what happened to the Native American who lived there. The book is rich in the historical details without it ever really taking away from Diego’s story.

I enjoyed Zorro more as it progressed because you first see how Diego’s parents meet and I wasn’t too interested in that, but once Diego is born and you start to follow his adventures and how he slowly begins to learn about the good and evil in the world it became more interesting to me. Diego’s relationship with Bernardo, a boy who is more like his brother than a friend, is great because they have an almost telepathic connection. How their friendship develops over time is wonderful because Bernardo acts as a foil for Diego’s exuberance and his schemes probably wouldn’t be a success without Bernardo’s input.

The action, when it happens, is exciting and the sword fights are thrilling. Zorro is a mixture of a lot of different genres, family drama, romance, and action and adventure. The story is of Diego’s first twenty years and he fits a lot into them and it’s interesting to see that as he evolves, he is becoming the hero we’ve heard of before.

Zorro is a well-written story about an adventurous young man who is a purveyor of justice, destined to become a legend. It’s always fascinating to read an origin story of an almost mythic character and Isabel Allende does a brilliant job with this one. 4/5 .

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Wonderful review, Elena. I’ve never heard of this book before, but it seems very interesting. I only vaguely remember the story of the Zorro movie, so it might be nice to have another perspective of the story of the legend.

Thanks for this review. One of my favourite books is House of Spirits by Isabel Allende. The last few weeks I kept trying to remember the other book by her that I wanted to try. This is it. Thanks for the reminder! Lol.

Haha! Not a problem, I’m happy to help. Zorro was the first book of hers I read, I liked the writing style so I will be checking out more of her work.

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Book Reviews

Zorro comes to life in allende's latest.

Alan Cheuse

Alan Cheuse reviews Zorro by Isabel Allende. The novel takes place in early nineteenth-century California and Spain. It spurs to life the legendary romantic hero Zorro.

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Written by Isabel Allende Review by Bethany Skaggs

Though adventure plays a large part, this is as much a tale of how Diego de la Vega evolved into The Fox as it is the story of Zorro’s famous exploits. The novel begins with the relationship of Diego’s parents, one a distinguished California hidalgo and the other a Shoshone warrior. It follows young Diego and his “milk brother” sidekick Bernardo as they travel to Spain, fall in love, have amazing adventures, and become men.

This is an English version of the Spanish original, and at times the translation can be a bit too literal. For example, a Spanish idiom translated literally in the book as “Tomas ordered Juliana to talk things over with her pillow” would have been better rendered as “sleep on it.” These are minor quibbles, however. Full of romance, danger, swordplay, and occasionally humor, Zorro is an Errol Flynn flick in book form. The cast of characters includes everyone you’d expect in a swashbuckler, from gypsies, pirates, and swooning maidens to the token villain. The women in this novel, as in all of Allende’s work, are exceptionally well drawn. The men are also vivid, from the traumatized, silent Bernardo to the honorable, justice-driven Zorro. The Fox Allende has created is slightly conceited, while at the same time chivalrous, entertaining, and likable. The characters are familiar rather than stereotypical, and Allende wisely avoids falling into the cliché trap, primarily through the tongue-in-cheek narration. Set in the chaos of Napoleonic Spain and the Alta California of the hidalgos, the backdrop adds depth and drive to the story with its social mores and shifting political tides. Allende has crafted a swashbuckling tale, with just a hint of the magical realism that will be familiar to readers of her other works. Zorro is delightful fun and a rollicking good read.

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“A graceful imagining of the saber-wielding, justice-dispensing freedom fighter of yore. Latter-day Californian Allende…provides a back-story that brims with modern concerns…Allende’s tale risks but resists descending into melodrama at every turn. The up-to-date, even postmodern ending makes for a nice touch, too, and will gladden the heart of anyone ready in his or her heart to carve a few Zs into the bad guys.” — Kirkus Reviews

“Allende wants to have some fun, and in this she succeeds with a variety of spunk and good cheer…I am amazed at how enjoyable a picaresque novel can be, particularly one imbued with swashbuckling, swordplay, honor, hidden desire, unlikely coincidence and a good old-fashioned villain. Such elements are a reminder of the attractions of one of the main strains of world literature that starts with Don Quixote…The book has plenty of what Hollywood would call non-stop action, and this is told with a pleasure so keen on the author’s part that it’s difficult not to be swept up in it.” —Craig Nova, The Washington Post

“Allende’s literary craftsmanship is impeccable. De la Vega is beautifully drawn, and Allende uses a lively narrative voice to create intimacy and suspense. Equal parts adventure, historical novel and family saga, Zorro is a moving portrait of a hero who is heartbreakingly human.” —Minh Nguyen, People

“Isabel Allende leaves few swashes unbuckled as she follows her protagonist from the late 18th to the early 19th century, exploring the history of California along the way. She never condescends to the material and, as a grandmaster of magic realism, gives Diego’s saga a smooth, limpid flow.” —Charles Shaar Murray, The Independent

“Reckless, unstable, attention-seeking, hysterical, sexually provocative, given to histrionic gestures, and with at least a split, dual, or possibly even a multiple personality, Zorro is the archetypal neurotic-as-hero. He also wears a mask. Obviously, out in the real world, you'd lock him up and throw away the key. On the page, though, he’s absolutely irresistible.

The story of Diego de la Vega, the son of an aristocratic Spanish landowner and a Native American Shoshone warrior, who becomes Zorro while traveling the world with his dependable sidekick Bernardo, is clearly a perfect fit for the author of The House of the Spirits and The Stories of Eva Luna .” —Ian Sansom, The Guardian

“All fans of adventure and legend, of heroes and history, en garde! In a match made in heaven, Isabel Allende takes on the legend of Zorro and presents the swashbuckling saga of his formative years as only a storyteller of her caliber could.

Allende…graces Zorro with the sensuous imagery of California, Louisiana, and Spain in the tumultuous early days of the 19th century. Rippling with humor and energized with a storyline so robust that it swings from the chandeliers, Zorro is great fun. Her vision of how Diego de la Vega became the renowned avenger who slices a signature 'Z' to mark his deeds is a thrilling journey into a world in which cultures clash as often as swords.

Allende’s sumptuous descriptions of her characters are delightfully vivid stories in their own right.

But amid all the fun, Allende weaves in lessons in humanity as well. Cultures…are often at cross-purposes in Zorro , but Allende makes sure their commonalities are evident.

This is a big, sprawling story, superbly told. Allende, who was asked to write this book by Zorro licensors, succeeds in breathing new life into this decades-old character so that he may indeed ride again.”  —Amy Canfield, The Miami Herald

“Viva Zorro! This is not your tired matinee idol Zorro, nor the sexy cartoon Zorro of the comics. This is Diego de la Vega (the man who, with the flash of a sword, becomes Zorro), a swashbuckler of the first order: complex, compassionate, romantic, and sometimes ruthless. Allende is in rare and absolutely peak form in her just-plain-super dissertation on this folk hero of Spanish-American lore, the 18th-century California version of Robin Hood.

Reverting to her best work, Allende uses the tried (and sometimes tired, but not here) and true literary conceit of a tale told by a compadre of Zorro—someone (we don't know who till novel’s end) in close contact with our hero along his travels and travails. And from her Dickensian beginning in Alta California in 1790 to her surprising ending, Allende’s latest pulses with emotion, action, politics, and sensuality.

Allende has done more here than craft a new legend about Zorro that’s better written than Johnston McCulley’s series. She’s done what she did so well in Daughter of Fortune and Portrait in Sepia : Allende has reconstructed the time and place of de la Vega’s/Zorro’s exploits, and given him vivid new life.

There is, of course, romance and the intense sensuality Allende is known for, as well as a highly developed political perspective. All combine to make Zorro a fully realized, definingly modern creation.

The richness of her text (and subtext) evolves out of this superior understanding of character and intuitive ability to divine the place in which that icon from history was born and bred. Allende knows storytelling, and in Zorro , a thoroughly enjoyable, keenly evocative, and surprisingly moving tale, she has once again hit her best, most provocative stride.” — The Baltimore Sun

“In her latest historical novel, [Allende] imaginatively creates, in the words of the narrator, ‘the origins of the legend’—the legend being none other than Zorro, the famous Robin Hood of eighteenth-century colonial California.

Allende’s mesmerizing narrative voice never loses timbre or flags in either tension or entertainment value. To describe her as a clever novelist is to signify that she is both inventive and intelligent.” — Booklist

“Marvellous, marvel-filled…Beautifully written and utterly entrancing.” — The Independent on Sunday

“ Zorro succeeds because of the author’s desire to show that every man (and every woman) can fight for justice if he or she has the determination.

Allende’s Zorro is wonderfully crafted. She richly imagines Diego’s parents: his father, Alejandro de la Vega, a Spanish landowner, and his mother, Toypurnia, a Shoshone Indian warrior.

Allende will delight readers who are familiar with Diego, his beloved companion, Bernardo, and Zorro’s faithful black steed, Tornado.

True to her signature use of magical realism, Allende combines elements of mysticism, Indian folklore and ancient traditions to explain how the fox came to be Diego’s totem and spiritual guide.

Allende, who already is celebrated for her gift of storytelling in such best sellers as Daughter of Fortune , The House of the Spirits , and Eva Luna , gives Zorro the feel of a folk or fairy tale with her ability to draw readers in, hold their attention, and keep the story moving at an exciting pace. The book has a suspenseful air, and it’s not until the end that the novel’s unidentified narrator is unmasked.” — USA Today

“In the course of her interesting career Isabel Allende has produced three distinct types of fiction…All three types converge in Zorro , one of those rare and perfect matches of subject and author.

Allende has reached into this cultural compost heap of pulp fiction, movies, and television and forged a character with a soul and a heritage. Allende…has rooted her story in a re-creation of Latin California and remade her hero, Diego de la Vega, into the first real all-American hero.

A picaresque novel with postmodern flourishes, the sinfully entertaining Zorro is serious fiction masked as a swashbuckler. And with luck, Allende can squeeze as many sequels out of the character as Hollywood has.” — The Houston Chronicle

“The charm of Isabel Allende’s Zorro lies in her distaff point of view—the way she takes the time to connect the whole mask thing with the cosmetic challenge of protruding ears.

Zorro is a light and ripe adventure yarn, a female-friendly variation on an already famous figure of boy-driven pop culture.” — Entertainment Weekly

“Allende relishes the complicated history of the era, weaving historical detail that never feels gratuitous into her hero’s story.” — Rocky Mountain News

“While the Hollywood version back then was akin—in creativity, at least—to the old adventures of The Lone Ranger, Isabel Allende’s version is enormously fuller and infinitely more interesting, bursting with a vivid and colorful personality.

Zorro is a terrific, new-fashioned swashbuckling tale full of fun, history and romance.” — Bookreporter.com

“Diego’s crisis of identity, his relationship with Bernardo, and his love for a woman he cannot have make for enthralling reading. Allende is a beguiling storyteller, and Zorro provides a rich palate for her customary embellishments.” — Library Journal

“Allende’s Zorro combines unrequited love and good old-fashioned adventure…Allende pulls off a neat writerly trick: making the improbable seen possible. Zorro 's back-story is practically seamless, with every quirk, from his athletic abilities to his mystical bond with Bernardo, smoothly explained.” — The Seattle Times

“Best-selling novelist Isabel Allende’s vivid reimagining of the Zorro legend will make you want to pick up a sword and start slashing your initials into the nearest available bad guy.

This rollicking adventure yarn is that much fun, chock-full of romance and heroism, a swashbuckling read for the whole family…

Allende’s cinematic scene-chewing and brisk pace make Zorro a novel easy to read in an all-night session.

And the action! There’s a tragic pirate raid on the California estate, an event that scars both boys; a sea voyage with a crusty crew of sailors; magic tricks and acrobatics; a prison-break rescue (actually, two); a trek across Basque country with Gypsies; a secret society of heroes devoted to the pursuit of justice; capture by the charming pirate Jean Lafitte; a scheme to steal a fortune in pearls (it backfires, of course, thanks to the man in black); and more old-fashioned, rip-roaring storytelling than you can shake a sword at.

Remarkably, Diego is no cardboard hero checked out from central casting; Allende has skillfully rounded his corners, nuanced him, and breathed life into him as a somewhat foppish caballero by day, the fearless defender of the downtrodden (and no slouch with the ladies) by night. His dual nature perplexes and defines him.

Allende’s Zorro reads like classic 19th-century literature. Sometimes, there’s nothing like a seat-of-the-pants adventure to lighten the weight of the world.” — San Antonio Express

“[ Zorro ] is hugely enjoyable. It appealed both to the sober-sided book reviewer that I am and the bespectacled, television-viewing lad that I was. I have been missing this kind of thing for 40-odd years; it seems simply not to be around. We have lost our appetite for narratives of frolicking farfetchedness and preposterous implausibility.” — The Globe and Mail

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At the risk of betraying my age, I confess to eagerly anticipating the weekly installments of Zorro's escapades on our (ahem, black and white) television. While the Hollywood version back then was akin --- in creativity, at least --- to the old adventures of The Lone Ranger, Isabel Allende's version is enormously fuller and infinitely more interesting, bursting with a vivid and colorful personality.

These are the early years, just the first couple decades of Diego de la Vega's life, but they explain how a boy of mixed blood became a man driven to right terrible wrongs, save damsels in distress, free prisoners unjustly held, and all manner of heroic deeds.

The story begins in the early 1800s in Alta California, a colony then held by Spain. Diego grows up alongside Bernardo, a servant's son, but treats him as a brother, not caring that their stations in life are vastly different. Diego's grandmother, White Owl, teaches them about okahue , the five basic virtues. Almost without realizing it, nearly everything the boys do thereafter pushes them further toward honor, justice, respect, dignity and courage. During an ancient ritual test they undergo to prove themselves, Diego's alter ego is revealed to him, setting him on the path to becoming the full-fledged Zorro.

Diego and Bernardo board a ship bound for Barcelona, expanding their adventures and making friends who may prove valuable later. They spend several years in Spain, furthering Diego's studies and exposing him to Juliana de Romeu, the enchanting beauty who steals his heart and ruins him for any other woman. But Juliana has many suitors, one exceedingly tenacious --- unfortunately, also unscrupulous. Well-connected Rafael Moncada, it seems, will stop at nothing to win her hand. As ZORRO's narrator points out, it wouldn't be much of a story without a formidable villain. And Moncada is a truly formidable villain. While Diego wistfully watches Juliana, her younger sister Isabel zealously watches Diego. He finds it hard to move so much as a muscle without Isabel's keen scrutiny. And, quietly, in the background always, is Bernardo, Diego's silent brother, without whom he would be incomplete.

Spain during this time is undergoing some painful political upheavals. Zorro works a little magic, but he is up against daunting odds. The de Romeu family finds themselves misaligned with the new government, and Diego finds himself misaligned with Moncada. It becomes necessary for Diego to smuggle the sisters out of Europe, back to America where it is hoped they will be safe. This, of course, leads to more high seas adventure, fraught with storms, bad omens, pirates, grumbling sailors and a host of other maladies. Back at home, Diego finds many more challenges for Zorro, for not all is as he left it. And some of his troubles follow him from Spain.

ZORRO is a terrific, new-fashioned swashbuckling tale full of fun, history and romance.

Reviewed by Kate Ayers on January 24, 2011

Zorro by Isabel Allende

• Publication Date: May 3, 2005
• Genres: Fiction
• Hardcover: 400 pages
• Publisher: HarperCollins
• ISBN-10: 0060778970
• ISBN-13: 9780060778972

Isabel Allende | 4.08 | 20,136 ratings and reviews

Ranked #98 in Spanish

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Zorro (Allende)

Zorro   Isabel Allende, 2005 HarperCollins 416 pp. ISBN-13: 9780060779009 Summary Swashbuckling adventure story that reveals for the first time how Diego de la Vega became the masked man we all know so well.

Born in southern California late in the 18th century, he is a child of two worlds. Diego de la Vega's father is an aristocratic Spanish military man turned landowner; his mother, a Shoshone warrior. Diego learns from his maternal grandmother the ways of her tribe while receiving from his father lessons in the art of fencing. It is here, during Diego's childhood, that he witnesses the brutal injustices dealt Native Americans and first feels the inner conflict of his heritage.

Sent to Barcelona for a European education, Diego joins "La Justicia," a secret underground resistance movement devoted to helping the powerless and the poor.

Between California and Barcelona, the persona of Zorro is formed, a great hero is born and the legend begins. After many adventures, Diego de la Vega, a.k.a. Zorro, returns to America to reclaim the hacienda on which he was raised and to seek justice for all who cannot fight for it themselves. ( From the publisher .)

Author Bio • Birth—August 2, 1942 • Where—Lima, Peru • Education—private schools in Bolivia and Lebanon • Awards—Dorothy and Lillian Gish Prize, 1998; Sara Lee Foundation Award, 1998; WILLA    Literary Award, 2000 • Currently—lives in San Rafael, California, USA

Book Reviews It is not possible to sum up the surprises, rescues from prisons, flirtations (between Zorro's true love and, for example, a pirate), but the book has plenty of what Hollywood would call non-stop action, and this is told with a pleasure so keen on the author's part it's difficult not to be swept up in it. Washington Post

Allende’s discreetly subversive talent really shows.... You turn the pages, cheering on the masked man. Los Angeles Times

Equal parts adventure, historical novel and family saga, Zorro is a moving portrait of a hero who is heartbreakingly human. People

( Starred review .) Allende's lively retelling of the Zorro legend reads as effortlessly as the hero himself might slice his trademark "Z" on the wall with a flash of his sword. Born Diego de la Vega in 1795 to the valiant hidalgo, Alejandro, and the beautiful Regina, the daughter of a Spanish deserter and an Indian shaman, our hero grows up in California before traveling to Spain. Raised alongside his wet nurse's son, Bernardo, Diego becomes friends for life with his "milk brother," despite the boys' class differences. Though born into privilege, Diego has deep ties to California's exploited natives—both through blood and friendship—that account for his abiding sense of justice and identification with the underdog. In Catalonia, these instincts as well as Diego's swordsmanship intrigue Manuel Escalante, a member of the secret society La Justicia. Escalante recruits Diego into the society, which is dedicated to fighting all forms of oppression, and thus begins Diego's construction of his dashing, secret alter ego, Zorro. With loyal Bernardo at his side, Zorro hones his fantastic skills, evolves into a noble hero and returns to California to reclaim his family's estate in a breathtaking duel. All the while, he encounters numerous historical figures, who anchor this incredible tale in a reality that enriches and contextualizes the Zorro myth. Allende's latest page-turner explodes with vivid characterization and high-speed storytelling. Publishers Weekly

Allende's retelling of Zorro displays her essential belief that the fabric of the story—the making of the man—is as important as the actions. Born to an aristocratic Spanish father and a tamed Shoshone warrior in 18th-century California, Diego de la Vega learns the lessons of injustice early. His mother's Indian blood and the violence perpetrated against the Native Americans by European settlers ignite a slow-burning fire in Diego. When Diego is sent to Barcelona with his "milk" brother Bernardo to be educated in the ways of his forebears, he studies with a fencing master and joins an underground resistance group, where Zorro the romantic revolutionary is truly forged. Allende's Zorro is not quite the violent, swashbuckling rogue that Johnston McCulley created in his serial potboilers, but this Zorro doesn't have to be for his character to be compelling. One does long for a little more swordplay, but Diego's crisis of identity, his relationship with Bernardo, and his love for a woman he cannot have make for enthralling reading. Allende is a beguiling storyteller, and Zorro provides a rich palate for her customary embellish-ments. Recommended for all public libraries. — Misha Stone, Seattle Library Journal

Allende's mesmerizing narrative voice never loses timbre or flags in either tension or entertainment value. To describe her as a clever novelist is to signify that she is both inventive and intelligent. — Brad Hooper Booklist

Critics agree that while Zorro is light and entertaining, it is also a serious piece of literature...[and] most agree that Zorro is a captivating, modern version of the famed legend. Bookmarks Magazine

A graceful imagining of the saber-wielding, justice-dispensing freedom fighter of yore. Children of the '50s may happily remember Guy Williams's TV portrayal of the legendary Zorro, who carved his signature initial into his enemies' flesh with the point of his sword and kept the entire Spanish army in Alta California busily searching for him. Latter-day Californian Allende provides a backstory that brims with modern concerns: In her hands, Zorro is an ever-so-slightly tormented revolutionary whose sense of justice comes from the accident of his birth. The child of a Spanish officer and a Shoshone Indian woman, Diego de la Vega grows up with a profound knowledge of the injustices wrought by Europeans on California's native peoples. He takes his vulpine identity— zorro is Spanish for "fox"—early on, after a fox delivers him from danger; says his grandmother, helpfully, "That zorro is your totemic animal, your spiritual guide.... You must cultivate its skill, its cleverness, its intelligence." He does, reaching adolescence "with no great vices or virtues, except for a disproportionate love of justice, though whether that is a vice or a virtue, I am not sure." A Rousseauian child of nature, de la Vega travels to Spain to acquire a continental education. Becoming radicalized in the bargain, he defies the country's Napoleonic rulers and joins an underground alliance to battle them, then takes the fight back to America. But first de la Vega must endure being shanghaied by pirates, who, neatly enough, haul him before the legendary uber-pirate Jean Lafitte for a parlay. He acquires yet more education in the bayous, then makes for California once more to visit mayhem on corrupt officialdom on behalf of truth, justice and the Spanish way of life. Allende's tale risks but resists descending into melodrama at every turn. The up-to-date, even postmodern ending makes for a nice touch, too, and will gladden the heart of anyone ready in his or her heart to carve a few Zs into the bad guys. Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions   Use our LitLovers Book Club Resources; they can help with discussions for any book:

• How to Discuss a Book (helpful discussion tips) • Generic Discussion Questions—Fiction and Nonfiction • Read-Think-Talk (a guided reading chart)

Also consider these LitLovers talking points to help get a discussion started for Zorro :

1. Allende reshapes the legend of Zorro, creating a back story to explain his action-hero life. Talk about the ways in which Zorro's history—family lineage and upbringing—lead to his strong sense of justice. Who and/or what played the most important role in his development?

2. Do a little research into the various incarnations of Zorro— from the original story by Johnston McCulley in the early 20th century to the film and tv versions played by Douglas Fairbanks, Guy Williams, Anthony Hopkins, and most recently Antonio Banderas. How is Allende's version different from—or similar to—the earlier Zorros?

3. In what way is Zorro an archetype of a romantic champion for the oppressed? What other figures in history, literature and film, religion, or mythology does Zorro resemble? What makes this such an enduring character in our culture and psyche?

4. How do you see Allende's creation of Zorro? Is her Zorro a one dimensional, swashbuckling hero? Or is he more complex, containing the human contradictions of passion vs. rationality, darkness vs. light?

5. What role does Bernardo play in this novel? Is he a typical sidekick...or something more important? How would you describe him?

6. What about the two sisters, Julia and Isabel? In what ways are they different from one another. Who was your favorite/ least favorite?

7. How does Allende represent women in this work? In what way does she insert 21st-century feminism into an a narrative set in the late 18th century?

8. Talk about the injustices, as portrayed by Allende, in 18th-century California—particularly the treatment of native Americans at the hands of the European settlers.

9. Were you surprised by the narrator's identity at the end...or had you figured it out? How trustworthy is the narrator as a teller of truth? Why might Allende have chosen this particular character to tell Zorro's story?

10. As the Bookmarks review (see above) suggests: some critics see this book as both an entertaining adventure/action story and serious literature. Other reviewers have dismissed this work as an over-the-top melodrama—even the narrator wryly observes at one point that a story like this needs a formidable villain like Rafael Moncada. What's your opinion?

( Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks .) top of page (summary)

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Behind the mask

Zorro: The Novel by Isabel Allende 400pp, Fourth Estate, £16.99

Reckless, unstable, attention-seeking, hysterical, sexually provocative, given to histrionic gestures, and with at least a split, dual or possibly even a multiple personality, Zorro is the archetypal neurotic-as-hero. He also wears a mask. Obviously, out in the real world, you'd lock him up and throw away the key. On the page, though, he's absolutely irresistible.

The story goes that Isabel Allende was sitting at home one day when a bunch of people arrived on her doorstep, saying they owned the copyright to the character of Zorro and would she like to write a new novel about the masked avenger? Allende initially turned down the offer, considering such work beneath her, but then she started thinking about all that juicy historical detail - Spanish America in the late 18th century, the American war of independence, the power struggle between Old Europe and the New World, corrupt governors, the fight for justice on behalf of the oppressed - and she also started to imagine Antonio Banderas playing the role of Zorro in the film of the book, and thus was born Zorro: The Novel. All fired up and full of vigour and vim, she wrote the book, apparently, in three months.

So it should be rubbish. And of course, in parts it is: sentimental, inconsistent, awkward and full of ludicrous plot twists. But large parts of lots of books are rubbish, and sentimental, and inconsistent, and awkward, and full of ludicrous plot twists. Zorro: The Novel bears the usual scars of creation, but it's also beautiful and disturbing and profound, and anyone who tells you it isn't is clearly immune to whatever part of the normal human being thrills to feats of derring-do, and has clearly forgotten also what it's like to fashion a makeshift cape from an old shirt, to use a tie as a cummerbund, a stick as a sword, and to recreate scenes from a favourite comic, film or and old black-and-white TV series. They're probably a literary critic, in fact, or a reader only of highbrow literary fiction. En garde.

The novel is told in Allende's characteristically brisk, dizzying style, in which all men are "energetic and commanding" and spend most of their time leaping to and from whinnying horses, seducing beautiful, intelligent and highly unsuitable dark-eyed women, and amassing huge personal fortunes with which they buy lots of heavy furniture for their hacienda, which later gets burned or smashed up by despicable rogues. The story of Diego de la Vega, the son of an aristocratic Spanish landowner and a native American Shoshone warrior, who becomes Zorro while travelling the world with his dependable sidekick Bernardo, is clearly a perfect fit for the author of The House of the Spirits and The Stories of Eva Luna. There is a wise old shaman grandmother; there are initiation ceremonies; spirit guides; voodoo; perilous sea voyages; imprisonments and captures; incredible escapes; secret societies; marauders of each and every kind; and, just to give a point to all that picaresque, many a sweeping statement about the importance of fulfilling human destiny.

Zorro first made his appearance in Johnston McCully's story "The Curse of Capistrano", published in 1919: scholars suggest that McCully may have modelled the character on the infamous Californian bandit Joaquin Murieta, adding a touch or two of the Scarlet Pimpernel for good measure. McCully went on to write another 64 Zorro stories, and there have, of course, since been endless spin-off films, comic books, TV series and merchandising opportunities, not to mention the huge indebtedness of just about every masked all-American superhero to the original caped crusader: Batman, for example, is clearly just a Wasp Zorro with a fancy car. There is another Zorro film, entirely unrelated to the Allende novel, starring Antonio Banderas and Catherine Zeta-Jones, due for release later this year, and there is also a Zorro musical in development by flamenco-lite maestros the Gypsy Kings.

Given all this swash and buckling, one might reasonably ask what it is that distinguishes Allende's book from, say, Jerome Preisler's recent Zorro and the Jaguar Warriors (Preisler being one of the many people who write "Tom Clancy" novels) or David Bergantino's Zorro and the Dragon Riders (in which Zorro meets up with samurai warriors) or John Whitman's Zorro and the Witch's Curse (Whitman also writes novelisations of Digimon and Star Wars).

Allende certainly adds a few refined, ironic literary touches that are absent elsewhere in retellings and reinventions of the Zorro story: her Diego de la Vega, like Don Quixote, decides to lead the life of an adventurer partly because he has become obsessed with novels, "a minor genre plagued with inconsistencies, basic errors, and personal dramas". Allende's Zorro is also a fusspot and a dandy, obsessing over the details of his costume like some vain Greek warrior - like Alcibiades, say, or Achilles with his shield. Allende's use of a female narrator - Isabel de Romeu, one of Zorro's many female admirers - also helps to pep and perk up the myth. But Allende's real insight is into Zorro's use of the mask - in the end, after his adventures, he doesn't want to take it off. A disguise like all disguises, it becomes a problem as well as solution, a metaphor for the question that obsesses not only literary heroes and their authors, but also the perfectly sane: who am I?

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Zorro's Shadow: How a Mexican Legend Became America's First Superhero Paperback – September 15, 2020

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“SADDLE UP! Andes takes us on an exhilarating, dust-kicking ride through the actual origins and history of the first hemispheric Latinx superhero: Zorro.”  —Frederick Luis Aldama, editor of  Tales from la Vida: A Latinx  Zorro’s Shadow explores the masked character's Latinx origins and his impact on pop culture—the inspiration for the most iconic superheroes we know today. Long before Superman or Batman made their first appearances, there was Zorro. Born on the pages of the pulps in 1919, Zorro fenced his way through the American popular imagination, carving his signature letter Z into the flesh of evildoers in Old Spanish California.  Zorro is the original caped crusader, the first masked avenger, and the character who laid the blueprint for the modern American superhero.  Historian and Latin American studies expert Stephen J. C. Andes unmasks the legends behind Zorro, showing that the origins of America’s first superhero lie in Latinx history and experience.  Revealing the length of Zorro’s shadow over the superhero genre is a reclamation of the legend of Zorro for a multiethnic and multicultural America. 

• Print length 304 pages
• Language English
• Publisher Chicago Review Press
• Publication date September 15, 2020
• Dimensions 6 x 0.6 x 9 inches
• ISBN-10 1641602937
• ISBN-13 978-1641602938
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• Publisher ‏ : ‎ Chicago Review Press (September 15, 2020)
• Language ‏ : ‎ English
• Paperback ‏ : ‎ 304 pages
• ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 1641602937
• ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-1641602938
• Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 14.2 ounces
• Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 6 x 0.6 x 9 inches
• #246 in Comic & Graphic Novel Literary Criticism
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About the author

Stephen j. c. andes.

Stephen J. C. Andes received his doctorate at Oxford University and is an associate professor of history at Louisiana State University.

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James Patterson finishes Michael Crichton’s book, with explosive results

“Eruption,” trailing clouds of publicity, is the summer’s ultimate literary mashup.

Death has not appreciably slowed Michael Crichton’s publication schedule. Since he passed away in 2008, several of his manuscripts caught in the amber of time have been zapped to life and set free to stomp around the world alongside “The Andromeda Strain,” “Jurassic Park,” “Congo” and his many other best-selling novels.

Still, one story that Crichton had worked on for 20 years remained dormant on his hard drive. In a recent statement, Crichton’s wife, Sherri, described discovering the unfinished draft: “When I came to the abrupt end, it was the ultimate cliffhanger — though, for the first time, not one that Michael had meticulously planned.”

This fragment might never have seen the rising sun, but when enough money is involved, life finds a way. So now, trailing thunderous clouds of publicity, the summer’s ultimate literary mashup arrives June 3: “ Eruption ,” a Crichton manuscript completed by James Patterson. As author partnerships go, this is Godzilla’s head grafted onto King Kong’s body. Of course, Hollywood is already buzzing around it, and why not? Together, these two authors — or their brands — have sold an estimated 675 million copies, one for every year since the Neoproterozoic era.

“Eruption” opens with a prologue set in Hawaii at the Hilo Botanical Gardens. Rachel, a park biologist, “just couldn’t believe her eyes”: Three banyan trees have died and turned black. “Rachel had never seen or read about anything like this. . . . This was something else. Something dark, maybe even dangerous.” An old friend tells her, “Don’t panic,” but “she was scared.”

This is an opening sure to leave amateur gardeners on the edge of their Adirondack chairs. The rest of us will have to take it on faith that even greater horrors than a few withered trees lie ahead.

Sure enough, nine years later, when the action picks up again, 36-year-old John “Mac” MacGregor hears a deep rumbling and feels the beach shaking. As director of the Hawaiian Volcano Observatory, Mac understands what that means. “He’d always known this day would come.” Steam is already wafting up from the top of Mauna Loa, the planet’s biggest active volcano, a colossus that rises almost six miles off the ocean floor. “The eruption was only days away.”

Welcome to Mac Versus the Volcano.

Speaking at a quickly assembled news conference, Mac says, “Volcanoes are a little — or a lot — like wild animals.” But to keep from causing panic, he doesn’t tell the public they’re about to experience “the biggest eruption in a century,” which six pages later someone else describes as “the biggest damn eruption in a century,” so we know it’s going to be really big.

Not to worry, though. Scientists have been studying Mauna Loa for a long time, and — stop me if you’ve heard this one before — they’ve got a fail-safe plan to intervene and control the forces of nature. By precisely placing explosives around the island, these eggheads imagine they can “vent the volcano” and safely direct millions of tons of lava wherever they choose.

Of course, Mac — handsome, can-do Mac, who’s also an accomplished surfer, by the way — knows this plan is crazy. “The eruption in 1984 wasn’t particularly large,” he reminds his colleagues, “but it produced enough lava to bury Manhattan to a depth of thirty feet.” So, vent Mauna Loa and safely channel its wrath? Good luck!

But Mac and his team will need more than luck, because “Eruption” isn’t just a story about some lava threatening Hawaiian residents. For decades, the Army has been secretly storing radioactive waste laced with an experimental defoliant in hundreds of fragile glass canisters underground. Mauna Loa’s coming hissy fit threatens to send lava down those holes, release the toxic waste into the atmosphere and kill all life on Earth.

In response to a classified briefing on this impending apocalypse, Mac says, “Give me an hour.”

“To do what?”

“To come up with a plan so we don’t have to kiss our asses goodbye.”

Presented with a choice between reading dialogue like this or being submerged in lava, I’d be stumped. But “Eruption” disgorges a lot of both. The authors tell us, “The world might be about to explode, but guys were guys.” And it seems women were girls. Whenever female characters — no matter how well qualified and credentialed — enter these pages, their cutesy banter sounds 1940s-fresh. The lead demolition expert, who “would have looked like a high-school cheerleader if it weren’t for her wire-frame glasses” — says to Mac: “Well, if you can’t buy a girl lunch, how about dinner later?” A New York Times reporter trying to wheedle her way into Mac’s good graces says, “Anyplace around here where a girl could get a cup of coffee?”

And while surveying those glass canisters of poison, one of Mac’s “ extremely attractive” colleagues asks, “Can I be honest?”

“When are you not?”

“I don’t want to die, Mac.”

“And you’re not going to,” he says. “Not on my watch.”

It’s hard to imagine anyone actually saying these lines, but “Eruption” is written with such longing for its next iteration as a big-budget movie that casting suggestions are embedded right in the text. The head of the geophysical modeling team from the Army Ordnance Corps is “a George Clooney look-alike.” Gen. Mark Rivers, who oversees the military operation on the island, has the “rugged good looks of the actor Pierce Brosnan.” And the New York Times reporter with “a winning smile” looks like “Halle Berry.”

The bigger challenge for “Eruption,” though, is keeping everybody busy while we’re waiting for the Big Bang. No matter how broad a hero’s shoulders or how square his jawline, nobody looks particularly impressive while bickering about competing contingency plans. It’s a reminder that the only thing more dispiriting than a mountain blowing up is a tense department meeting. One can sense here Patterson straining to dramatize Crichton’s explanations of volcanic science. A couple of times characters are practically abducted and then subjected to what feels like a grandiose PowerPoint presentation. An obnoxious Elon Musk-like character flies in to save the day with two shameless publicity hounds, but all their scenes are played with Vaudevillian subtlety. And efforts to flesh out Mac’s troubled marriage feel entirely superfluous.

Fortunately, those slow spots will eventually be burned away by the impending cataclysm. What lingers, though, is how clumsily “Eruption” handles the racial component of its plot and setting. This is, at its heart, a White savior story heated to 2,000 degrees. Yes, there’s some perfunctory acknowledgment of the native Hawaiians and their volcano deity Pele, but all told, the authors’ cultural investment feels as deep as buying a plastic lei at the Honolulu airport. And what genius thought it was a good idea in the year 2024 to write about a radioactive poison so horrible, so fearsome that it turns victims’ skin “black”?

When Mauna Loa does finally blow, it’s not so much a disaster as a relief. At last, we get the mayhem we came for. A couple of beloved characters are killed, which is very sad, and a few irritating ones are burned to a crisp, which is very satisfying. A scientist watching the destruction on his monitor declares: “Never this much lava. Never this much vog. This is our perfect storm” — a line I’ve begun using at home whenever the laundry gets out of control.

Patterson’s imprint feels strongest in the novel’s final extended sequence. Death-defying scenes are minced into such brief segments that it feels as though a character could start to blink in one chapter and open his eyes in the next. But even with a plot that’s more igneous than ingenious, you won’t know what’s coming.

In this grand battle between a brave scientist and the world’s largest, most toxic volcanic eruption, nothing is guaranteed.

Don your oven mitts.

Ron Charles reviews books and writes the Book Club newsletter for The Washington Post. He is the book critic for “ CBS Sunday Morning .”

By Michael Crichton and James Patterson

Little, Brown. 424 pp. $32

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Book Club: Let’s Talk About ‘James,’ by Percival Everett

Everett’s latest novel revisits “the adventures of huckleberry finn” from the perspective of huck’s fellow runaway..

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The broad outlines of Percival Everett’s new novel, “James,” will be immediately familiar to anyone with even a basic knowledge of American literature: A boy named Huckleberry Finn and an enslaved man named Jim are fleeing down the Mississippi River together, each in search of his own kind of freedom.

But where Mark Twain’s “Adventures of Huckleberry Finn” treated Jim as a secondary character, a figure of pity and a target of fun, Everett’s novel makes him the star of the show: a dignified, complicated, fully formed man capable of love and wit and rage in equal measure.

In this week’s episode, the Book Review’s MJ Franklin discusses the book with his colleagues Joumana Khatib and Gregory Cowles. Caution: Spoilers abound.

They also discuss comments and questions that readers submitted. If you’ve read “James” and want to join the conversation, we’d love to hear your reactions in the comments. We’ll get you started:

MJ Franklin: “Everett’s version of ‘Huck Finn’ veers into different territory pretty immediately. From the first page, you learn that there is more to James than meets the eye.” …

Joumana Khatib: “This book is certainly subversive. I have no problem considering it an act of subversion. In fact, one of the major themes in this book is just how dangerous and risky language is, and claiming it for yourself, wielding it for yourself.” …

Gregory Cowles: “One thing that happens throughout this book, James, as a runaway slave, is always kind of trying to suss out when he encounters a white person, Is he a safe white person? And really there are no safe white people in this book. … ‘Adventures of Huckleberry Finn’ is maybe the original avatar of the white savior narrative. Who is Huck except the white savior for Jim? And ‘James,’ by Percival Everett, is a book that refuses the white savior narrative.”

We would love to hear your thoughts about this episode, and about the Book Review’s podcast in general. You can send them to [email protected] .

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