Praise for Toby Olson´s writing: Nothing can detract from Mr. Olson´s ability
to conjure gorgeous prose passages that celebrate the healing powers of
friendship, the pleasures of love and lovemaking, and the inborn mystery and
beauty of things in this world. --New York Times Book Review Toby Olson takes
on almost everything that a work of fiction can bear. --Los Angeles Times
Toby Olson is one of America´s most important novelists. --Robert Coover
Four old men--John, Gino, Larry, and Frank--have been warehoused at the
Manor, a long-eroded home for the forgotten. The men take turns telling
stories, stalling death as they relive pivotal parts of their pasts. Outside,
the cliff crumbles and a lighthouse slips toward the sea.
John, in particular, enthralls the others with his tale of Tampico, Mexico,
where he met an Indian woman named Chepa who owned a house at the edge of a
mountain wilderness. She was his first love--and his first lesson in the
dangers of foreign intrigue. But his is not the only memory haunted by
mysteries born in Mexico. Sick of waiting for death, stirred by the shifting
ground beneath their feet, the Manor´s residents finally resolve to quit that
place and head out for Tampico.
With inexorable pull, and exquisite scenes that could only come from Toby
Olson, Tampico celebrates a sublime band of calaveras, those skeleton
messengers of mortality, who seek self-discovery even as their lives are
ending.
