Puffery of Colonialism over the Rights of Indigenous People to their Mountains
Lynn Galvin, Legacy of the Blue Mountain: A Novel (Reno: University of Nevada Press, February 11, 2025). Paperback. 442pp, 5.5X8.5”. ISBN: 978-1-647791-93-3.
***
“During the last century, strange tales have drifted from the Sierra Madre Mountains; rumors of battles, murders, robberies, and kidnappings between Mexicans and a mysterious, wild people. Recovering from double amputations, US Marine Nick Diaz returns from Afghanistan seeking healing at his family’s border ranch in Cochise County, Arizona. He finds the ranch renamed and declared a new nation by one cousin; another cousin is missing; the family’s cattle herd has been sold off; and smugglers roam the hills. As Nick attempts to adjust to his own physical challenges and to changes on the ranch, he discovers a people who may need more help than he does. What might happen to a group of Apache children, born in present times, yet living as if in the past and marooned in the Sierra Madre mountains of Mexico when their last renegade adult dies? As they attempt to reach their nearest, last known family members, they embark on a journey to a place none of them has ever seen or visited before. Will they be able to remain undetected while following a memorized path laid out in previous centuries that will lead them into the modern world? As the last remaining Apache children confront the challenges of survival in unfamiliar lands, will they endure long enough to reunite with their remaining relatives?”
This is a very strange summary. What does the marine have to do with the Apache children? The first half seems to be an anti-immigrant dystopia that imagines American lands confiscated by foreigners. Then, the journey of the children from wild isolation into “civilization” seems to echo Tarzan-like adventure. I have no idea what this author was thinking combining these concepts. I am currently writing a book that encourages combining unique plotlines to avoid formulaic ones, but combinations should be congruent, or should logically fit together.
I dive into this novel’s problematic structure in a section of my forthcoming book on speculative writing.
There are many other problems aside for the overall pro-colonial message. For example, the “wild” native children are presented as following abstract ideas, such as: “Look like what you are not” (5). In a realistic portrayal, these kids would have intricate knowledge of plants, and how to survive in the forested mountains. They either would have died immediately on losing a guardian, or if they could make it through a long journey to “civilization”, they would not have needed to find any relatives there, but rather could have continued being self-sufficient in the mountains. The rescue-narrative is a falsehood. Before colonizers came, these kids lived in top-quality farm land, probably did some farming on that same land, and probably in the same crops that the settlers later planted after confiscating the land from them. The othering of natives, and making them seem less intelligent or superstitious is a negative exercise.
I would rather not read further into this novel.
Pennsylvania Literary Journal: Spring 2025 issue: https://anaphoraliterary.com/journals/plj/plj-excerpts/book-reviews-spring-2025

I really enjoyed this fiction book, it had that element that I was hoping for from the description. I was engaged with the characters and how they felt like realistic people. I thought Lynn Galvin wrote this perfectly and was glad I got to read this.

“After the sun had moved into patterns of shade along the rim of the canyon’s rocks, she crept out from cover and climbed up a steep gulley to a spot high on the ledges. There she settled in the shadow of a rocky overhang and scanned the country below. A hawk circled in the late afternoon sky. “

The fast-moving and well-written book by Lynn Galvin adeptly describes the Bronco (or wild) Apaches, a group of Chiricahua Apaches who refused to be captured and who slipped into the Sierra Madre Mountains in Mexico where they hid and settled. The group was known to be peripatetic, and there were rumors that the people committed robberies, murders, and kidnapping. When the final older adult dies, the remaining group is mostly children of various ages, well-trained in how to escape detection and identification as they carefully make their way through the mountains.

Galvin's astute knowledge of the Apache culture and their language is impressive. We learn details about their culture that pique our interest. Thus, this book is educational and enticing at the same time.

The other group that becomes part of this tale centers on the Diaz ranching family. Nick, who is a double amputee from war in Afghanistan, creates connections between and among the Apaches he encounters in the mountains and canyons, including an incipient romance with one of the young "Bronco" women. Nick's family is challenged by some of its members who are anything but upright citizens which creates another level of plot.

Legacy of the Blue Mountains is a rich and educational book that teaches readers about the different groups of Apaches and their past and current struggles. Galvin's knowledge of the various tribes is fascinating and comprehensive. Anyone with interest in Southwestern Native culture will appreciate the nuances of each group featured in the book. The geographic physical detail, the strong cultural connections, and the focus on maintaining life as it has been taught to them is frankly, fascinating. All readers can learn copious detail about the Bronco group, past and present.

Thanks to the publisher and Net Galley for the opportunity to read this impressive book.