366 Western American Literature young, objective Leila remembers that Mah married to get a green card and to save herselffrom the disgrace of having a runaway husband. The texture of Bone, Ng’s first novel, is neither as rich as that of Maxine Hong Kingston’s works nor as intricate as that of Amy Tan’s novels. The very difference, however, makes Ng’s debut a welcome addition to the canon of Asian-American literature. SEIWOONG OH Rider College Flowersfor the Broken. By Benjamin Alire Saenz. (Seattle: Broken Moon Press, 1992. 165 pages, $13.95.) This isa collection ofnine short stories, mostofwhich have previouslybeen published separately in journals or anthologies. With one exception, they are principally set in California, west Texas or southern New Mexico, and the leading characters are Chicano men and women with deep roots in the desert and living ties to parts ofnorthern Mexico. But don’t read these stories to learn about southwestern Chicano ethnicity. These stories are regional in setting and tone, but strive for an expression of universality in human motivation and feeling. The title story is a good example of Saenz’s ability as an effective and moving storyteller. It is the account ofa single dayin the life ofa young, twentythree -year-old woman named Angel who lives with her mother in El Paso and delivers flowersfor a living. In the course ofthis single day, the readerwitnesses Angel’sstruggle to develop a sense ofidentity and purpose out ofthe confusion of her experiences at home and on thejob. She loves her mother, Rosa, and feels commitment and responsibility toward her, but at the same time Angel longs to be free from her mother’s controlling personality and dominant opinions. Angel desires love and is attracted to men, but at the same time she is insecure about herselfand afraid ofher feelings. Her mother’scynicism about men is a further complication for Angel. Rosa tells Angel that she must never get married. She says that men are trouble and “at their best when they are in your dreams, and that is the only place where theybelong.”Through a series of events in the course ofthe day,Angel comes to declare her independence from her mother, and to insistupon herfreedom to choose lovefor herselfwhen the time is right. This same awareness and honesty about the complications and contradic tions oflife are present in everystoryin the volume. Saenz iscompassionate and tolerant in his perspective, and his art isan invitation to understand the human heart. PAULJ. FERLAZZO NorthernArizona University Reviews 367 Crazy Woman. ByKate Horsley. (Albuquerque, New Mexico: La Alameda Press, 1992. 239 pages, $10.95.) Crazy Womanis a remarkable novel which combines a story ofthe westward journey with an Indian captivity narrative and presents them both from the point ofviewofawoman. Kate Horsley manages to navigate admirably between the Scyllaand the Charybdis ofhistorical fiction. On the one hand, to call Crazy Woman an historical novel is reductive because that label presupposes that in order to be historically authentic heroines are obliged to be reticent and discreet, as mostfictional and autobiographical accounts ofnineteenth century women on the frontier present them. Inez in Cooper’s ThePrairieisan example, though extreme, of a woman refined out of existence. On the other hand, to draw the character of a woman with all her appetites and assertions intact is to be accused of anachronistic thinking, of delivering a modern woman in nine teenth century clothing. The “crazy woman” Sara Franklin is distinguished as a fictional portrait because she may be much closer to the true westeringwoman than those silent, sunbonnetted beings, both in and out of fiction, who knew their place and stayed put while they kept house in their covered wagons on their difficult journey. Kate Horsley has re-created a hypothetical but authentic American frontier woman, a reluctant pilgrim, who tries in her desperate way with her abusive father, her feckless husband, and the uncomprehending Apaches to insist upon her right to be Sara Franklin, a woman whose modest assertions of selfhood ought not to be dismissed as “crazy.” In telling Sara’s personal narrative, Kate Horsley also offers a fresh look at the waywestas awoman would have seen it: the preparations in...