Description
When Curva Peligrosa arrives in Weed, Alberta, after a twenty-year trek on the Old North Trail from southern Mexico, she stops its residents in their tracks. With a parrot on each shoulder, a glittering gold tooth, and a wicked trigger finger, she is unlike anything they have ever seen before. Curva is ready to settle down, but are the inhabitants of Weed ready for her? Possessed of an insatiable appetite for life and love, Curva’s infectious energy galvanizes the townspeople, turning their staid world upside down with her exotic elixirs and unbridled ways. Toss in an unscrupulous americano developer and a one-eyed Blackfoot chief, stir them all together in the tumult of a tempestuous tornado, and the town of Weed will never be the same again. A lyrical account of one woman’s journey and the unexpected effects it has on the people around her, Curva Peligrosa pulses with the magic at the heart and soul of life.
Advance Praise for Curva Peligrosa:
Curva Peligrosa is a wildly inventive, consistently engaging, and amusing novel, but under its bright exterior lurk darker undertones and truths; it’s a book which attempts to say serious and important things about language, story-telling, mortality, indigenous cultures, love, and sex.
—Steven Bauer, author of The Strange and Wonderful Tale of Robert McDoodle and A Cat of a Different Color
Readers will find themselves spellbound by this novel’s enchanted events. From the opening page when a tornado picks up a purple outhouse and deposits it intact in the middle of the Canadian prairie town of Weed with seductive Curva Peligrosa still inside, magical events occur. A visitor all the way from Mexico, Curva, six feet tall, lusty, mysterious, and irresistibly attractive, enthralls the townspeople. After her arrival, miraculous events envelop her and the town. Curva’s dead twin brother appears. Ancient bones speak and come to life. A geyser bursts spontaneously from the earth, gushing water even in winter. In prose lush and poetic, Lily Iona MacKenzie’s novel explores the inscrutable connection between life and art, fiction and fact. I found myself captivated from first page to last.
—Hugh Cook, author of Heron River, The Homecoming Man, and Home in Alfalfa.
Curva Peligrosa takes you on an entertaining, raucous, even bawdy ride.
—Nina Schuyler, author of The Painting and The Translator.
Sumner Wilson –
Curva Peligrosa
Curva Peligrosa first appears to the reader via a violent tornado that transports her into the town of Weed, Alberta, The vehicle she rides into town in is a her purple outhouse, the color of the outhouse reveals her own personality. She is bombastic, a fighter, unimaginably sexy, and wears .38 pistol on her hip. By the way, she is a super markswoman with the pistol. Goldtoothed, Curva exudes sex, and everywhere she goes roses and other precious flowers pop up in full bloom in the tracks she lays down. She is buxom, as well as curvaceous, but her curves are extremely dangerous. She is also a talented midwife, much in demand, especially after she touches down in the town of Weed. Not only this, but she has a talent for making healing potions from native plants.
In the beginning, she leaves home with her twin brother, with the intent to travel the Old North Trail from the south to the north. The twins find themselves in the mythological town of Berumba, and work for a time with the Pacheco family there. She learns how to make potions from Ernesto Valunzuela Pacheco, the family patriarch. While there, she decides to continue the journey to the end of the trail alone, well, in the company of her horse, her dog, and two parrots. Curva is an excellent rider. She often stops for a few days in towns that are hosting rodeos. Curva disguises herself as a man, and enters and wins the bull riding and bareback horse riding competitions. This is how she earns the dough to continue her trip.
On her trip, she communicates to Xavier through letters she writes to him—writes but never mails the letters. She reveals the back-story through these letters. Through all this, she seems to be searching for an elixir to prolong life, or even to create one that will allow for immortality. She is quite talented
A wild host of characters invade the story, Kadeem, a Trinidadian wizard. A prostitute by the name of Suelita Flores—one of my favorite characters in the book, and the characters are many to pick from
After twenty years she hauls up in the small town of Weed, and immediately changes the town from a small tight knit community into a free-spirited one. This frees some of the women from the boundaries that hold them back. One character even goes so far as to emulate Curva in that she does her gardening in the nude.
Curva uses some of her rodeo winnings to buy a small farm on the outskirts of Weed, and settles in to have sex with any man that catches her eye, except, of course for the villain of the story, a high-flying oilman that goes by the single name, Shirley. The bad man Shirley is out to sign up all the oil rights in the town and surrounding area, which will of course change the outlook of the town and not only the town but of all its citizens. A feud sets in between Curva and Shirley. Although she does find help in the guise of a one-eyes half Indian, half scot, with red hair and blue eye, named Billy One-Eye.
Curva Peligrosa is a work of literary fiction, and the reader will fall in love with all the characters, except for Shirley, boo to him.
Lily McKenzie’s writing is song descriptions like Curva herself exudes love songs as she writes.
This book is a killer, and I highly recommend it to all.
K. L. Romo –
For those who love adult fables and supernatural tales, Curva and her mysterious powers will keep you enthralled and entertained.
Dr. Jessie Voigts –
Why must you read Curva Peligrosa? It’s a story of the living – and dead. It is an inspiration to live life fully, and well. It’s an education into history, travel, and indigenous people. it’s a story of people, and change, and written with a very strong sense of place. It’s full of characters you will love. And, it’s a book you won’t be able to put down. I loved Curva Peligrosa, and tell everyone I know about it. Highly recommended.