Madewell Brown

As recorded in Rick Collignon’s second novel,
Perdido, a tall black man with one arm longer than
the other walked into Guadalupe, New Mexico one
morning about 50 years ago, stayed pretty much
to himself for seven years, and then walked back
out of town. No one knew who he was or what
became of him.
Now, as his last act, an old man named Ruffino
Trujillo tells his grown son Cipriano a story about
what became of the black man. After Ruffino’s
death, Cipriano discovers an old canvas bag
bearing the name of Madewell Brown. Inside are
a hand-carved doll, an old blanket, an unlabeled
photo of a Negro League baseball team, and a
small, yellowing envelope that was never posted.
Thinking it the least he can do, Cipriano mails the
letter. When it arrives in Cairo, Illinois, it comes
into the hands of a young woman named Rachael,
who believes it is from her lost grandfather. She
believes this because of all that she’s been told by
the raggedy old man who taught her everything:
Obie Poole, who was Madewell’s friend and the
orphaned Rachael’s anchor, the man who gives this
eloquent novel its authentic sense of history lived.
Drawn magically forward on Rick Collignon’s
direct and haunting prose, we follow Rachael to
Guadalupe in search of her own identity and we
watch as Cipriano tries to make sense of the story
his father told him about a dead man who didn’t
belong there.
This fourth installment in Collignon’s beloved
Guadalupe series is as magical as its predecessors,
as emotionally honest, as surprising -- and it firmly
establishes Rick Collignon as a master American
storyteller.