Donald Miles reads from his new book
By Kimberly Kinser March 28, 2008 San Miguel de Allende

Authors’ Sala
Donald Miles & John Virtue
Fri, Apr 4, 5pm
Villa Jacaranda
Aldama 53
50 pesos

Photo caption:  Don Miles examines a bullet still lodged in a Puebla shopkeeper’s door.

A writer brings his or her unique voice and experience to a piece of writing, and Donald Miles is no exception. A lifelong educator, he married a teacher from Mexico City and together they raised a bicultural family. Miles tries to correct a common misconception of Mexican history in the US with his book Cinco de Mayo: What is Everybody Celebrating?

While Miles was teaching in Texas, the principal of the school announced over the loudspeaker, “Today is Cinco de Mayo, Mexican Independence Day.” When Miles challenged the announcement, the response was something like: “We have always taught it that way.” A line was drawn in the academic sand.

Miles found that outside the Latin American Collection of the University of Texas at Austin, there was little written about the Battle of Puebla and the French intention to rule Mexico. His wife, Dr. Minerva González-Angulo Miles, a professor at Texas State University in San Marcos, had faculty library privileges at all state universities, so Miles began to explore the topic.

The research for this book became an extended family affair. With the help of his wife’s relatives and their friends throughout Mexico, they investigated the Battle of Puebla and the May 5, 1862 upset victory that demoralized French forces.

Of the Battle of Puebla, Miles writes: “[General Ignacio] Zaragoza had guessed correctly: [General] Lorencez didn’t have a clue about military strategy. He had just flung his foot soldiers heedlessly up the hill against fortified positions and well-placed artillery, deluded in his belief that no one could defeat his world-famous army. The moral of the story of Cinco de Mayo was that Mexican soldiers could stand up to the best that Europe had to offer, especially when they served under determined and capable leadership. Because of this unexpected but welcome victory, the Mexican people were inspired to persevere.”

What most of us might not know is that the Mexican forces did persevere for another five years because the conflict continued, terminating in nearby Querétaro with the execution of Emperor Maximilian.

The Authors’ Sala welcomes Donald Miles on April 4 so that we can be just that much more prepared to celebrate with our Mexican neighbors in May.

Look here next week for more on John Virtue, who also is reading for the Sala on April 4. He is the author of a biography of Stirling Dickinson.

Kimberly Kinser is the creator of Pizarra Blanca Writers, an Amherst artist and writer’s workshop.

Book Fever
By Marcia Loy

Still more debutants

The love of reading enables a man to exchange the wearisome hours of life, which come to everyone, for hours of delight.

—Charles de Montesquieu

Here are good first novels.

The Secret Life of Bees by Sue Monk Kidd, 2002. A first novel by a southern writer, this is the story of Lily Owens, whose mother died under mysterious circumstances when Lily was four years old. When she’s fourteen she runs away from her home with Rosaleen, the black woman who’s worked for her father for years.

Excerpt: The bees came the summer of 1964, the summer I turned fourteen and my life went spinning off into a whole new orbit, and I mean whole new orbit. Looking back on it now, I want to say the bees were sent to me. I want to say they showed up like the angel Gabriel appearing to the Virgin Mary, setting events in motion I could never have guessed. I know it is presumptuous to compare my small life to hers, but I have reason to believe she wouldn’t mind; I will get to that. Right now it’s enough to say that despite everything that happened that summer, I remain tender toward the bees.



The Kite Runner, Khaled Hosseini, 2003. What a first novel! This was recently made into a film. This powerful book, set in Afghanistan before the Russian invasion, is a story of redemption. The characters are unforgettable, the setting is absorbing, the writing is beautiful.


First paragraph: I became what I am today at the age of twelve, on a frigid overcast day in the winter of 1975. I remember the precise moment, crouching behind a crumbling mud wall, peeking into the alley near the frozen creek. That was a long time ago, but it’s wrong what they say about the past, I’ve learned, about how you can bury it. Because the past claws its way out. Looking back now, I realize I have been peeking into that deserted alley for the last twenty-six years.


The Spellman Files, Lisa Lutz, 2007. Here’s a fun first novel about a family of private investigators: the parents, 28-year-old Isabel and 14 year-old Rae, along with attorney brother, David. The story takes place in San Francisco. In spite of their profession, it’s not strictly a private eye story; although there’s a mystery, it’s not a mystery novel. It’s categorized as a “domestic novel” and that’s closer to the truth.



Excerpt: A single lightbulb hangs from the ceiling, its dull glow illuminating the spare décor of this windowless room. I could itemize its contents with my eyes closed: one wooden table, splintered and paint-chipped, surrounded by four rickety chairs; a rotary phone; an old television; and a VCR. I know this room well. Hours of my childhood I lost in here, answering for crimes I probably did commit. But I sit here now answering to a man I have never seen before, for a crime that is still unknown, a crime that I am too afraid to even consider.


Behind the Scenes at the Museum by Kate Atkinson, 1995. Atkinson is an American who now lives in Scotland. Ruby Lennox, the main character, begins the narration of this novel not with her birth, a la Charles Dickens, but at the moment of conception. This book is both funny and heartbreaking. It was named the Whitbread Book of the Year for 1995 and was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year.


Excerpt: We live in a place called “Above the Shop” which is not a strictly accurate description as both the kitchen and dining-rooms are on the same level as the Shop itself and the topography also includes the satellite area of the Back Yard. The Shop (a pet shop) is in one of the ancient streets that cower beneath the looming dominance of York Minster. In this street lived the first printers and the stained-glass craftsmen that filled the windows of the city with coloured light. The Ninth Legion Hispana that conquered the north marched up and down our street, the via praetoria of their great fort, before they disappeared into thin air. Guy Fawkes was born here. Dick Turpin was hung a few streets away and Robinson Crusoe, that other great hero, is also a native son of this city. Who is to say which of these is real and which a fiction?

Word Watch
By Bill Gallacher

anciano (noun m.) It does not really work for ancient, which would be antiguo. As a noun, anciano is sometimes used to refer to an old person, or a senior citizen, with few of the overtones of ridicule that calling a person an ancient would invoke in English. I have heard quite different opinions by Mexicans on the nuances of viejo and anciano, so some care is suggested in their usage. 

año (noun m.) The universal word for year, as everyone knows. Do remember, however, to include the tilde, that little squiggle over the “n,” when writing and get the “nyih” sound right when speaking. Otherwise you are talking body parts. Feliz ano nuevo might get you a laugh, but it might also get you a slap on the face. Kidding, of course. In general, Hispanics are very tolerant of our mispronunciations.

apartar (verb) Basically, to move away and when used reflexively, to move oneself away. The complete opposite, to come closer, is acercarse. There is a common use of apartarse that may not be so obvious at first glance. It is often used in women’s clothing stores to announce that goods may be “laid away.” For men who may not be familiar with this mode of commerce, an article may be provisionally purchased through the placing of a deposit, the article then being kept on reserve in the store until the purchaser can come up with the balance, usually called el saldo. I have noticed apartarse creeping into real estate promotions, where lots are being offered on the apartarse system. Apártate tu lote con sólo 1000 pesos entices a sign in Ajijíc. Yes, you can lay away your building lot for just one hundred dollars! Easy to walk away from, of course, which may be exactly what the developer wants.