# Reading > Write a Book Review >  The Milagro Beanfield War, By John Nichols

## Sancho

Henry Holt and Company, 1974

*Milagro
*
Yet Milagro was a town whose citizens had a penchant not only for going crazy, but also for precipitating miracles. 

So begins the authors description and invention of this tiny town in northern New Mexico. And Milagro is a fabulous invention. John Nichols creates a town, its citizenry, its history, its geography and even its language. 

Although Milagro is a North American town, most of its residents have a last name that end in a vowel or in zed, (roll those rs when you read this) : Martínez, Hernández, Córdova, Archuleta, Armijo, Montoya. That is to say, Milagros roots trace back to Hernan Cortez rather than to John Smith. 

_Milagro_ means _miracle_ in Spanish and that is, in part, the identity of the town. Almost from its founding Milagro has had an unnatural and steady stream of so called miracles that, in a way, have defined the town. From _El Ojo de Cleofes Apodaca_ to _El Brazo de Onofre Martínez_, Milagro had a shared experience of strange occurrences, miracles, legends, and superstitions. 

Cleofes Apódaca was a nineteenth century sheep herder who claimed he had _El Ojo_  an evil eye. Mothers and pregnant women exercised extraordinary caution to avoid _El Ojo_ lest their children should sicken and grow a hump or their babies should be born without an arm or a leg or some other important appendage. 

_El Brazo de Onofre_ is a living legend. Onofre Garcia is a one-armed ornery old man who bombs around town in a mottled green 1953 Chevy Pickup with an ornery old three-legged German Shepard standing on top of the cab. Onofre is not only one of the novels characters, Onofre is a _character._ Nobody in town can quite remember when Onofre lost his arm yet quite a few explanations or myths had grown up around it. Onofre takes great pleasure in tipping his hat to the ladies with his nonexistent hand (a trick of the scalp) and, it seems, Onofres phantom arm gets credit for most of the anonymous shenanigans around town. If a young girl returns home from a date without her panties, _El Brazo_ de Onofre is blamed. If somebodys goat drops dead one night  _El Brazo._ Mothers of small children coerce their children into obedience not by threatening a late visit by _El Cucuy_ but rather a visitation by _El Brazo de Onofre. 
_
The largely illiterate population of Milagro often relied on Onofre to write love letters for them. Then they relied upon Onofre to read the love letters to their object of affection. Onofre couldnt remember when hed learned to read and write but his ability to write seemed to exist only the arm that he had lost. Hence, with Onofres literary arm gone, the romantic intentions of many young Milagro-ans floundered. 

Onofre had, at one time, been an excellent piano player but with his right arm gone, he could only play the boogie-woogie bass runs on the piano. And yet, the citizens of Milagro swore that late at night, they could hear beautiful melodies and bass runs wafting out over the valley from Onofres piano.

Spanish is the predominant language spoken in Milagro. The author goes to lengths to explain that the Spanish spoken in Milagro is an evolved version of Castilian Spanish rather than a Latin American Spanish. And Milagro's Spanish is based on the immigration patterns to the tiny town of Milagro. Expressions such as El Brazo de Onofre or Pachecos Pig had worked their way into the local dialect and it reminded me of how much language is a shared experience. When a local referred to the Smokey the Bear Santo riot, another local would usually exclaim: Ai Chihuahua! but an outsider would have no clue what they were talking about. It seems to me that it is somehow appropriate that Milagro has now made it into the idiom of that region of the United States. John Nichols writes about this in the Afterword to the second edition:

But nowadays the word milagro has been unceremoniously pizzafied and deified to a humiliating degree. In my home town theres a _Milagro_ art gallery and a _Milagro bed-and-breakfast._ A Denver company running tourists down to New Mexico calls itself_ Milagro Tours_. I have heard of stores featuring radio ad campaigns offering prizes in merchandise for astute listeners able to guess the number of _Milagro beans_ in a jar

*The Beanfield War*

Whats that little half-pint son of ***** want to cause so much trouble for?

And so begins the story of The Milagro Beanfield War. One day for reasons unknown even to himself, José (Joe) Mondragón, suddenly decided to irrigate the little field in front of his dead parents decaying west side home (which Joe still owned  in itself a miracle) and grow himself some beans. And yet irrigating that field was an act as irrevocable as Hitlers invasion of Poland, Castros voyage on the Granma, or the assassination of Archduke Ferdinand, because it was certain to catalyze tensions which had been building for years, certain to precipitate a war.

In the arid Southwestern United States, its all about who has the water  or who has the water rights. Not surprisingly, people with money or power get the water while people without money or power get the shaft. John Nichols crystallizes this dynamic in his novel.

For a related history, try googling the Los Angeles Aqua Duct, the draining of the Owens Valley and the much vilified LA water commissioner, William Mulholland. For a related comic novel, try _The Monkey Wrench Gang_ by Edward Abbey. 

*The Blam Method of Writing 
*
Ive always found the creative process fascinating. (probably because I am totally void of it) Where does the drive come from? Where do the ideas come from? How long did it take? What were the mechanics involved? Hunter S. Thompsons Proud Highway is a collection of his letters and some early articles; the reader can trace his development as a writer from his high school years to the publication of Hells Angels. Similarly, Earnest Hemingways _A Movable Feast_ is a rare glimpse into his development as a writer. I absolutely love to watch the directors comments on a DVD after watching a good movie. I want to know what they were thinking when they created this scene or that one. Try Mel Gibson after _Apocalypto_ or the Cohen Brothers after _No Country for Old Men_ or Tommy Lee Jones after _Three Burials of Melquades Estrada.
_
John Nichols wrote about his creation of this book in the Afterword to the second edition. When he sat down to write The Milagro Beanfield War, he was in his early thirties and broke. He had recently moved to northern New Mexico from NYC, and was in the middle of a dissolving marriage. In his new community hed gotten involved in a water rights political action group called the Tres Rios Association and he was writing political commentary for a local left wing newspaper. He knew that for a novel about water rights to reach any number of people at all, it would have to be funny, so he set out to write a comic novel. 

He wrote much of the novel in the rustic cabin of his friend, Rini Templeton. She did those wonderful illustrations for the book. She was a few years older than Nichols and it seems that he was quite taken with her. She was probably the inspiration for the Ruby Archuleta character. Sadly, Templeton died young. Nichols gives her a heartfelt eulogy in the afterword. 

As for Milagro, he said that one day he just sat down and started typing  no outline, no character sketches, no plot summary, no nothing. A friend of his called it the blam method of writing. He wrote the first draft in about forty days, then he edited for three weeks, then he took three weeks to type a clean copy and submit it to a publisher. Henry Holt and Company bought the manuscript for 10,000 dollars. The whole process had taken sixteen weeks.

Nichols must have written with a tremendous amount of exuberant energy to produce a 445 page novel in that short period of time and I could feel that exuberance while reading the book. It was fun to read and eventhough some of the vignettes were predictable, in the sense that things happened in a way that I wanted or expected things to happen, it was a fun read. It felt really good. 

At any rate, I enjoyed the book immensely. Its not exactly the kind of deep philosophical literature that guys with thick glasses and big foreheads like to read, but never mind that, it accomplished what the author set out to accomplish and it was a pleasure to read. My copy of the book has a photo of Nichols on the back cover. He is standing on a high mesa, presumably in northern New Mexico, and smiling an infectious smile. I appreciate a photo like that much more than the norm - where the writer is trying to look serious and cerebral, even to the point of scowling at the camera.

Well, there you go: Another ten hour flight and another long-winded book review by_ Sancho_ for the Literature Net. Writing a book review is much more fun than watching the inflight entertainment system and _damn_ I wish the stews would stay off of the P.A. and stay out of the isles and quit bumping their wide asses on my seat.

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## curlyqlink

I read this many years ago, and remember enjoying it immensely. I think it may be less of an actual novel and more of a character(s) study or place-study, but that's not such a bad thing I guess.

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## Sancho

Hey Curlyqlink,

I think youre onto something there. I know the book didnt really take off when it was originally published but word made it back to the author that _Milagro_ was being used in high school and college sociology classes to explore Chicano studies. 

One thing the book gets at fairly well is the Latin American approach to Catholicism. I read somewhere that there are more Catholics in Latin America than there are anywhere else on the planet. But the Catholicism practiced in the Americas is maybe not quite what Thomas Aquinas had in mind. It seems to lean a little to the supernatural side of religion and they like their Santos down there. It would be a very unwise move to say anything against La Virgincia de Guadalupe while in Mexico.

From _Milagro_ heres Carolinas Santos: (Bernabé Montoya is married to Carolina and is the Sheriff of Milagro)

The one real fight Bernabé and Carolina had had in their life together occurred because of the saints. It had been an abnormally dry year (every other year in Milagro was an abnormally dry year, alternating with all those abnormally wet years), and so one day, during the Death of the Fruit Tree Blossoms time, Carolina carried their San Isidora out into the back field asking him to encourage it to rain on their cucumbers. Well sure enough, it rained all right, then the rain turned to snow, and the snow turned into a blizzard, so Carolina ran outside with their Santo Niño de Atocha, begging him to queer the blizzard before the fruit trees were destroyed, and so the blizzard stopped and it began to rain again and the rain froze and tree branches fell down onto everything and some cows Bernabé had up in the canyon froze to death. Whereupon suddenly, gnashing his teeth so hard little pieces of porcelain literally spewed from his mouth, the sheriff jumped up and grabbed an armload of her saints and threw them into the holocaust. Carolina shrieked, plunged into the storm, retrieved her precious statues, and cried for three days.

Que Milagro, Que bueno. It was fun to read.

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## PabloQ

I read this back in the seventies, engjoyed it, but can't tell you much about it. I do remember that it is part of a trilogy. I also think they made a movie out of it.

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## Sancho

Pablo, Que tal?

The other two were, _The Magic Journey_ and _Nirvana Blues_. I havent read either. Nichols believed _The Magic Journey_ was the best of the three and lamented that it never quite took off like _Milagro_. The other novel he thinks represents his best work is _American Blood_. So Ive got those two on my to read list.

I first read _Milagro_ in the seventies as well, and rereading it took me back  to the tackiest decade in history  yes I did own a lava lamp. 

As odd as this may seem, it was the death of Paul Newman that motivated me read _Milagro_ this time. The movie was directed by Robert Redford; he and Newman had one of the great friendships of Hollywood and they loved to play practical jokes on each other. Theres a scene in the movie where one of the characters is shopping in Nick Reals General Store and says to Nick, I need some salad dressing, hows that one? (he points to a bottle of Newmans salad dressing on the shelf) Nick says, Nah, thats no good. Here, try this one instead.

Also Pablo, you gotta change that avatar. _Papayahed_ used that one for quite some time a while back so whenever I see it I think its her writing in. Then I get halfway through the post and I start thinking hey, wait a minute! This here dont sound like no _Papayahed_!

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## PabloQ

I love my avatar. That's my man expressing life as I see it and often time feel it. I guess I can shop for a new one.

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## papayahed

haha, your avatar sometimes confuses me too!! Very often i'm like "Wait i didn't write that"

Confusion is good, and keeping Sancho on his toes is even better - I'd keep the avatar if I were you.

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## Sancho

¡Hey-hey Papayahed! Muy Buenos noches. y ¿Como estàs tù?

Señor Pablo; Papaya has spoken. Thus, the young contemplative Chuck Brown is yours. It is now my burden to separate her from you. And while I am a man of limited transferative capabilities - I shall try. 

BTW, I like your location. I'm there as well -lost in the fog. Fog is a great literary mechanism.

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## MarJar

Hi everybody,

I've read the book several times now and I always find new interesting aspects.  :Idea:  Does anybody know secondary literature or study guides for this wonderful book? It would be a great help  :Smile: .

Muchas gracias!

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## Sancho

Hiya MarJar and bienvendidos! 

I don't know of any study guides but I do know that Univ of NM used the book in Chicano Studies in the early eighties.

As always, why not just do your own primary research? It's much more fun than reading about it.

Aiy Chihuahua!

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