Trinity Sight - by Jennifer Givhan (Paperback)

About the Book

"Our people are survivors, Calliope's great-grandmother once told her of their Puebloan roots-could Bisabuela's ancient myths be true? Anthropologist Calliope Santiago awakens to find herself in a strange and sinister wasteland, a shadow of the New Mexico she knew. Empty vehicles litter the road. Everyone has disappeared--or almost everyone. Calliope, heavy-bellied with the twins she carries inside her, must make her way across this dangerous landscape with a group of fellow survivors, confronting violent inhabitants, in search of answers. Long-dead volcanoes erupt, the ground rattles and splits, and monsters come to ominous life. The impossible suddenly real, Calliope will be forced to reconcile the geological record with the heritage she once denied if she wants to survive and deliver her unborn babies into this uncertain new world. Rooted in indigenous oral-history traditions and contemporary apocalypse fiction, Trinity Sight asks readers to consider science versus faith and personal identity versus ancestral connection."--

Book Synopsis

Winner of the 2020 Southwest Book Award

"Our people are survivors," Calliope's great-grandmother once told her of their Puebloan roots--could Bisabuela's ancient myths be true?

Anthropologist Calliope Santiago awakens to find herself in a strange and sinister wasteland, a shadow of the New Mexico she knew. Empty vehicles litter the road. Everyone has disappeared--or almost everyone. Calliope, heavy-bellied with the twins she carries inside her, must make her way across this dangerous landscape with a group of fellow survivors, confronting violent inhabitants, in search of answers. Long-dead volcanoes erupt, the ground rattles and splits, and monsters come to ominous life. The impossible suddenly real, Calliope will be forced to reconcile the geological record with the heritage she once denied if she wants to survive and deliver her unborn babies into this uncertain new world.

Rooted in indigenous oral-history traditions and contemporary apocalypse fiction, Trinity Sight asks readers to consider science versus faith and personal identity versus ancestral connection. Lyrically written and utterly original, Trinity Sight brings readers to the precipice of the end-of-times and the hope for redemption.

Review Quotes

"An absolutely fascinating, absorbing, compelling, and deftly scripted novel by an author with an impressive flair for originality and the kind of narrative storytelling style that keeps the readers rapt attention from first page to last, Trinity Sight by Jennifer Givhan will prove to be a unique and enduringly appreciated addition to community and college/university library Contemporary American Literary Fiction collections."

-- "Midwest Book Review"

"Calliope's mysterious, bittersweet journey is riveting, shocking, and full of heart."

-- "Lynn Hightower, author of The Piper"

"Trinity Sight, poet Jennifer Givhan's debut novel, is more than a dystopian road trip. Lyrical language and indigenous traditions elevate it into a nuanced examination of faith in the face of cataclysm...This is an original, emotional story written by a master of imaginative language."

-- "Shelf Awareness"

"There's a lot to love about Trinity Sight, a dense debut novel packed with Native stories and myths, conceived and plotted as carefully as a nationwide conference, full of organic stakes and interesting characters...Trinity Sight is a mature and deep-thinking book, and a surprisingly subtle and layered work of literature for a first novel....Watch Givhan carefully: she's got chops, and a flair for combining unusual genre elements."

-- "Katharine Coldiron, Locus"

"January Lavoy narrates a powerful dystopian saga...LaVoy perfectly captures the terrible cascade of emotions Calliope experiences...[and] wholly embodies the agonizing despair experienced by several characters...LaVoy's meticulous attention to detail shows in the care with which she voices all of the survivors Calliope surrounds herself with, each a different age and ethnicity, most with terrible psychological burdens, but all fiercely determined to persist. Winner of the AudioFile Earphones Award."

-- "AudioFile"

"Trinity Sight is a much-needed twist on the postapocalyptic novel, at once action-packed and filled with thoughtful meditations on science, belief, story, and belonging. Givhan vividly brings to life Puebloan oral history and the fierce, fantastical beauty of the Southwest, in a timely reckoning for the destruction wrought upon our world."

-- "Kim Fu, author of The Lost Girls of Camp Forevermore"

"Trinity Sight sucked me in, spun me around, and blew me away. This riveting tale set in a postapocalyptic wasteland is brimming with otherworldly adversaries who hold deadly grudges and mesmerizing travel companions who might prove to be just as dangerous."

-- "Nicky Drayden, author of The Prey of Gods"

"Trinity Sight, with its genre-bending brilliance, beguiling characters, and fearless heroine, is the most original, thought-provoking novel I've read in years. A blueprint for rebirth in the twenty-first century."

-- "Alexis Rhone Fancher, poetry editor for Cultural Weekly and author of Enter Here and Junkie Wife"

"A blinding light splits wide open the world as we know it, and so begins the quest for loved ones, for answers. Jennifer Givhan's Trinity Sight is a dystopic story, a page-turner but also poetically rich with emotion, memorable settings, and moving portrayals of the ancient people of New Mexico. A rewarding read, this novel keeps the reader engaged until the explosive end."

-- "Lucrecia Guerrero, author of the award-winning novel Tree of Sighs"

"A rocket-fueled, indigenous-culture inspired Mad Max--what a ride! Jennifer Givhan drives us through a hellish vision of our country's future by way of our ancestors' past. Fierce, wrenching, and written with a poet's eye for transformation and grace, inside this page-turner are the lessons the land may soon teach us. We ignore this 'fiction' at our peril."

-- "Brando Skyhorse, author of The Madonnas of Echo Park and Take This Man"

"A unique take on dystopian fiction, weaving the culture of Pueblo peoples into an adventurous, apocalyptic page-turner. Lyrical writing and exceptional plotting make this own voices novel highly recommended."

-- "Booklist (starred review)"

"A vivid, thought-provoking story that feels both intensely real and sublimely magical. I didn't realize how much I was craving a completely original story like this one!"

-- "Mia Sheridan, New York Times bestselling author"

"Brace yourself: The end of the world is coming. Or is it? A multilayered, Indigenous-inflected version of the apocalypse that resists predictability...Givhan's themes are complex and occasionally compete with the twists and turns of the plot for a reader's attention. Still, texture and nuance are rare among disaster narratives and are welcome here. A testament to the strength of women and girls with a side of philosophy, myth, and metaphysics."

-- "Kirkus Reviews"

"Poet Givhan blends Puebloan, Zuni, and Mexican American cultures in this searing postapocalyptic rumination on motherhood, genocide, and environmentalism...This magical realist tale reveres the power of nature, exploring what could happen if Earth punished humankind for the atrocities committed against it. Poetry imbues every page with power and truth, and the intense plot is propelled by fully realized characters and a majestically primal setting. This harrowing debut with Southwestern sensibility depicts the dangers of destroying our planet and questions whether mythology is an apt term to describe Indigenous beliefs."

-- "Library Journal"