IN THIS LAND OF PLENTY

A multigenerational saga that charts a family’s journey to the New World.

In 2018, Nicole Sinclair, a college graduate who’s grieving for her recently deceased mother, is living on her father’s ranch in California. Determined to figure out if her mom’s death was preventable, Nicole takes a DNA test whose results belie the predominantly Englishheritage that her parents previously claimed. Her cantankerous father gives her no answers, as their mutual grief has only made their relationship more contentious. He does, however, ask her to help her great-grandmother at her San Francisco home and also convince her to sell it. Nicole sees this as an opportunity to get more information about her family. Smathers, the author of Fertile Soil (2016), juxtaposes Nicole’s discoveries with chapters told from the perspectives of her ancestors. These are set in the 1700s and 1800s and focus on Diego Castro Cardona, an ambitious Spanish soldier who joins an expedition to California; and Tar, a young Native American girl who’s taken captive at a California mission. The author delivers an often engaging story that inserts aspects of real-life West Coast history into these parallel narratives. The scope of the plot is admirable, and Tar’s story is particularly compelling, as her feelings for a colonizer conflict with her anger at the destruction and assimilation of her people. However, the dialogue is often long-winded; indeed, it often feels as if characters are simply making speeches at one another. Sometimes it feels particularly unnatural and stilted, as when Diego meets a young Indigenous person: “Listen, young man. You must be, what, nineteen? Here’s the way it’s gonna be. I’ll let you go. But you don’t say a word to your comrades back at camp. Just pack them up, tell them you saw too big a contingent to fight. Whatever, make it up. Head east, quietly, now. Back to the big valley. At first light, I’ll lead my men west. But I’ll search your camp here first so you better be gone. Understand?” Yet, despite this, the novel ultimately delivers a stirring plot.

An often compelling, if flawed, tale of a family discovering their roots.