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The Master of Monterey

Published April, 2003

Featured Review at Kirkus Reviews website

Finalist, Book of the Year Award, Foreword Magazine

"California's extravagant, irresponsible, tragic history is often so absurd that only a magical realist can tell it. Lawrence Coates's deadpan farce joyfully captures the superb incompetence of everybody involved in the two-day Conquest of Monterey by a United States Navy ship in 1842. Still, what I will remember longest of this endearing novel is its unspoken tenderness. It's not a joke, in the end, but an elegy."
—Ursula K. Le Guin

The American conquest of California is the subject of Lawrence Coates's remarkable new novel, a tale rich in magical irony, fraught with caustic truths and wrenching insights into the human condition. When Commodore Jones and the crew of the National Intention land in Monterey believing themselves to be bringing freedom and democracy to the benighted Californios, they discover that history has preceded them, that cruelty, betrayal, greed, and lust are already well established there, and that far from existing outside of history, California is a battleground for several contending versions of the past. They also find that their own limitations and illusions are far more powerful than the message of hope that they intend to deliver. MORE...



		Official Homepage of novelist Lawrence Coates
The Blossom Festival Published September, 1999 University of Nevada Press Winner of the 1999 Western States Book Award Winner of the 1999 Utah Book Award Selected for the Barnes & Noble Discover Great New Writers Series "Lawrence Coates' fondness for the orchard country of central California in the years before World War Two brings to mind John Steinbeck and William Saroyan. His novel emerges from that same world, the fertile fields, the crossroads culture, where immigrant families collide and intermingle as they strive to claim some piece of the legendary western terrain. The Blossom Festival is an old American story made new. Coates knows the soil of Santa Clara Valley, he knows its history, and his tale shines a haunting light on the world we all inhabit now." —James D. Houston The Blossom Festival is a richly panoramic chronicle of rural life in the Santa Clara Valley during the decades before World War II. Against the lush backdrop of literally millions of fruit trees unfold the personal dramas of a fascinating cast of characters. This wonderful and leisurely read is an honest rendering of the complex relationships between parents and children in the changing context of a rich region of California that is leaving behind its agricultural past to become Silicon Valley. MORE...			The Master of Monterey Published April, 2003 University of Nevada Press Featured Review at Kirkus Reviews website Finalist, Book of the Year Award, Foreword Magazine "California's extravagant, irresponsible, tragic history is often so absurd that only a magical realist can tell it. Lawrence Coates's deadpan farce joyfully captures the superb incompetence of everybody involved in the two-day Conquest of Monterey by a United States Navy ship in 1842. Still, what I will remember longest of this endearing novel is its unspoken tenderness. It's not a joke, in the end, but an elegy." —Ursula K. Le Guin The American conquest of California is the subject of Lawrence Coates's remarkable new novel, a tale rich in magical irony, fraught with caustic truths and wrenching insights into the human condition. When Commodore Jones and the crew of the National Intention land in Monterey believing themselves to be bringing freedom and democracy to the benighted Californios, they discover that history has preceded them, that cruelty, betrayal, greed, and lust are already well established there, and that far from existing outside of history, California is a battleground for several contending versions of the past. They also find that their own limitations and illusions are far more powerful than the message of hope that they intend to deliver. MORE...
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