A Scattering of Jades

Publishers Weekly

Thanks to its vivid 19th-century setting, this debut horror novel rises considerably above the average. In the great New York fire of 1835 that kills his wife, newspaper typesetter Archie Prescott thinks he's also lost his four-year-old daughter, Jane. But Jane has survived, hideously scarred and kidnapped by Riley Steen, who once worked for P.T. Barnum. Steen possesses a chacmool, a Mesoamerican mummy through which a proper sacrifice will bring the god Tlaloc to rule the world. That proper sacrifice is Jane Prescott. By 1843, once Prescott realizes that he's in danger and that Jane is alive, he pursues her and Steen down the Ohio River to Mammoth Cave, where Steen found the chacmool years before. After a nightmare journey facing both human and occult menaces, Prescott confronts those who seek his daughter's blood. With the help of a guide, the slave Stephen Bishop (willing to risk his chances of freedom to prevent Jane's murder), he attempts to snatch Jane back to safety. While the plot may be fairly standard, with its theme of "old gods seeking revenge/return," Irving provides a fascinating, unromanticized picture of P.T. Barnum's early career, the bloodthirsty gangs of New York, life on the Ohio River and the precarious condition of even the most privileged slaves. The characterization is nearly as accomplished as the historiography, and the two together make the book an exceedingly solid achievement, with a great deal of promise for the author's future. (July 11) FYI: A descendent of P.T. Barnum, the author has published short stories in the Magazine of Fantasy and Science Fiction, Alfred Hitchcock's Mystery Magazine and Asimov's. Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

In 1835, when a great fire destroys much of New York City, aspiring journalist Archie Prescott loses not only his home but his wife and young daughter. Years later, an encounter with a former employee of P.T. Barnum leads him to the discovery that evil men are planning on raising up a chacmool, a Mesoamerican god with the power to destroy the world. The necessary sacrifice is Archie's daughter, who had not died in the fire but had been kidnapped, to fuel the sleeping god's resurrection. Short fiction veteran Irvine's first novel blends fantasy adventure with Aztec legends to produce a first-rate tale of dark forces at work in 19th-century America. A good choice for most fantasy collections Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Kirkus Reviews

Intelligent and strongly written debut historical-fantasy by a descendant of P. T. Barnum's. Excellently researched, this fantasia about New York City, Kentucky, and the Midwest in the 1840s mixes US history and Aztec mythology. In 1835, the Mesoamerican witch Lupita, who lives among the wooden tenements in Lower Manhattan, prepares the kidnapping of four-year-old Jane Prescott for eventual blood sacrifice to Thloc; instead, she causes a fire that burns down the whole ward, kills Jane's mother, and leaves Jane deeply scarred with burns and half of her face puckered. Lupita sells the child to Riley Steen, who owns a medicine wagon and has come into possession of a mummy awaiting a virgin's blood and hence reanimation as Thloc. Steen also works at times for P. T. Barnum, who has opened his great American Museum near Wall Street, and he means to park the mummy-in its great green-feathered cape-with Barnum, who will use it as a prime attraction. Steen, who has drawn much of his knowledge from the secret diaries of Aaron Burr (Burr was privy to the mystical background of Tammany Hall, a group known for its supernatural interests before it turned to politics), knows that the solar date for reanimation won't arrive for seven years. Seven years later, he arrives in Kentucky's Mammoth Cave, where the rival mummy of the evil chacmool has been discovered in the Bottomless Pit. Meanwhile, up in Manhattan, typesetter Archie Prescott, who thinks he saw Jane's burned body, finds himself pursued by a scarred 11-year-old who keeps calling him Dad. It is indeed Jane, who has run off from Steen, who hires thugs to find her again. The climax, deep below the Bottomless Pit, in Lethe and across the River Styx,marvelously rips off Dante while whipping up Aztec gore. Smartly written, uncliched.