THE SACRED WELL

The lives of Alma Reed (1896–1966) and Felipe Carrillo Puerto (1874–1924) are examined by May (Pilate’s Wife, 2006) in a novel that invokes the history and mystery of Mexico’s Mayan ruins.

Two love stories occupy the book. The first concerns real-life figures Reed and Puerto and the second concerns a fictitious contemporary writer, Sage Sanborn, and a scientist named David. Reed’s tale, the heart of this romantic adventure, would make a fascinating historical romance on its own. A journalist—and divorcee—in 1920s San Francisco, the seemingly fearless Reed made the leap from advice columnist to serious reporter when she got herself assigned to cover a 1923 archaeological expedition to Mexico. Once there, she fell under the sway of the handsome, married Puerto, governor of Yucatán. But the newly peaceful country—its revolution only a few years over—was still a hotbed of civic unrest. Puerto sided with the Mayan people, the oppressed, and many in the States considered him a communist. But Reed, at least in May’s take, saw his deep love for justice. She also uncovered a massive fraud and theft, involving the removal of the ancient treasures of Chichen Itza, the Mayan people’s birthright, to an American museum. She returned to the United States before Puerto was executed in a final spasm of revolution. May gets the period details right. Her Reed loves the new flapper-style dresses, but blushes at the thought of being seen in her archaeologist trousers. As love blossoms, the swooning prose fits the romance: “The world fell away, leaving nothing but Felipe and me dancing together on a glittering stage.” But when May shifts to the present to tell the story of Sanborn, the prose suffers. Perhaps the tale of a contemporary woman fleeing the emotional pain of a dying lover simply doesn’t lend itself to breathless prose, but May doesn’t help her case with lines like, “He was lost and I was left—so alive I could almost feel my hair and nails growing.”

Uneven writing disrupts an otherwise intriguing historical romance.