The Children of the Sun by Oakley Hall (review)

Reviews 353 south amounted to the same thing” is, then, a reflection on ethical insouciance. In “Morning Practice,” a father and daughter learn to mourn their celloplaying wife and mother, as they realize the dead woman’s hidden, separate life. Several times we are shown exquisitely delicate relationships between old and young. In “Eclipse,” an old man senses a similar (but unspoken) emo­ tional abandonment in a younger man, who in turn, cannot love his own small son. The generations reverberate in these almost timeless meetings. As the title and concluding story suggest, there is a warm, centering necessity in each life that must be — somehow — earned. The self-discovery may be of freshness in a decaying life, or of a tether in a scattered one. But it is this capacity to be redeemed from pain and confusion that never allows these “marginal types” to become stereotypes; they have a memorable and uni­ versal quality of spirit. MARJORIE JARRETT, Berkeley, California The Children of the Sun. By Oakley Hall. (New York: Atheneum, 1983. 320 pages, $14.95.) On Good Friday, 1528, Pánfilo de Narváez and 480 adelantados landed at Tampa Bay. They represented the second Spanish invasion of Florida, sailing under orders from the governor of Cuba and hoping to eclipse the soaring fame of Mexico’s Hernán Cortés. Within a year only a handful were still alive, and those were slaves of Indian tribes living along the Gulf of Mexico. In 1536 king’s treasurer Alvar Núnez Cabeza de Vaca, captains Alonso de Castillo and Andres Dorantes, and the Moor slave Esteban limped into Mexico City. They had lived seven years among the Indians, escaped, and walked 1600 miles across the desert home to New Spain. They were the expedition’s only survivors. Out of this web of history Oakley Hall has crafted a powerful novel, including in it the campaigns of Cortés, the political intrigues of colonial Mexico, and Coronado’s search for the Seven Cities of Cibola. The char­ acters are particularly unique and vivid. The pivotal figure, Dorantes, is in turn soldier, spy, slave, lay priest, rebel nobleman, father to three families, and social reformer. His sensitivity to the world changes profoundly during his captivity and trek through the desert, and he becomes involved with the basic conflicts of Mesoamerica: land distribution, human rights, and religious tolerance. Hall has a sure eye for detail and a flawless sense of narrative pace. This book, his thirteenth novel, is entirely a success. CHARLES HOOD, Glendale, California ...