The Oddity

Book excerpt: This dramatic philosophical novel spans more than half the twentieth century in Albuquerque and Los Angeles. The story centers on Hana Nicholas, a liberated woman ahead of her time who is the center of a circle of devoted friends in Albuquerque's North Valley. Her eccentric world comes to a sudden end in the early 1950s, and Lowell Briscoe, her young protégé, is haunted for the rest of his life by the rude destruction of Hana and her home. From New Mexico Christmas celebrations to the riots that shook Los Angeles in 1992, from psychotherapy to the courtroom, The Oddity is a heartfelt tribute to the ecumenical mixture of cultures that makes New Mexico unique. It is also a timely examination of issues that concern many Americans at the dawn of the twenty-first century, bringing to life conflicts between individual rights and institutionalized justice, spirituality and conformity, love, and fear. "This is a novel about meaning and the spiritual sickness that comes from searching for meaning and finding nothing that makes any sense."--from the Introduction