El Iluminado: A Graphic Novel
Stavans and Sheinkin have created that unusual literary piece in which, with a small dab of fiction added to a meaty portion of fact, the reader experiences both an enhanced understanding of the history and a delight in the fictional garnish. Stavans, a Mexican émigré who teaches at Amherst College, and Sheinkin, who illustrates and writes the juvenile graphic novels featuring Rabbi Harvey in the Wild West, prove the right team to bring to life the complex past and even more complicated present of the crypto-Jews of New Mexico. The narrative features Stavans as himself and hurls him into a murder mystery that unfolds upon his arrival in Santa Fe. In conversations that are depicted in long passages, Stavans fills in the history of crypto-Jewish settlement in the area without letting the pace of the mystery waver. This unusual work offers crossover appeal for those who don’t normally read graphic novels, and it is a great introduction to the fascinating history of Crypto-Judaism in the American Southwest. --Francisca Goldsmith