Review by Lynda La Rocca
Fantasy Fiction – July 2002 – Colorado Central Magazine
Sweet Uncertainty
By Arthur Zapel
Published in 2001 by Meriwether Publishing Ltd.
ISBN 1-56608-077-0
I wanted to like this book. To borrow from its cover proclamation, whenever “fantasy and reality intersect” in a novel, I’m already halfway hooked. And the idea of two benevolent, otherworldly beings riding a Pegasus-like winged stallion into our workaday world to help people is certainly intriguing.
But the writing is abysmal and the subplots are so convoluted and silly that Sweet Uncertainty rapidly becomes a parody of shoot-’em-up Westerns seasoned with touchy-feely, New Age platitudes that bring to mind comedian Al Franken’s clueless self-help guru Stuart Smalley — except they’re not supposed to be funny.
The numerous plot threads in this 436-page tome are woven around the Stiles family, proprietors of the Tall Pony Ranch and Stiles and Son Rodeo Stock Company of Westcliffe in Colorado’s Wet Mountain Valley.
The family breeds and raises rodeo stock and is particularly proud of their “spirit horses,” the legacy of an ancestor’s friendship with Ute Indian Chief Ouray.
Patriarch Oliver Stiles has a brain tumor but refuses to undergo conventional medical treatment. To the horror of his wife Jennifer, a former big-city nurse, Oliver wants to follow the path of his great-grandfather (or great-great grandfather, depending upon which page you’re reading), who was once cured of a supposedly incurable illness through the ministrations of a Ute “medicine man.”
Just before Christmas, an accident on a snowy mountain road results in the loss of some Tall Pony Ranch stock, including Scarfly, their prized bucking horse. Scarfly hasn’t really died, however. He’s been “borrowed” by Oliver Stiles’ business rival Charley Kingman, who wants to put Scarfly to stud to start his own line of champions.
After hiding Scarfly with the help of Thatch, a duplicitous Tall Pony Ranch hand, Kingman confesses to Thatch that his low sperm count is the reason he and his ex-wife — who really always loved Oliver, anyway — never had children.
Meanwhile, Oliver and Jennifer’s son, Hazard, runs into Ashalla and Polytumba, two beings from another dimension who appear at Tall Pony Ranch on a winged, white stallion named Telegasus. In human form, these spirits call themselves Lee Shalla, who manifests as a teenage girl, and Paul E. Tumba, who has assumed the appearance of an elderly man. They are taken in by the Stiles family and quickly become invaluable members of the ranch clan.
Additional subplots find Hazard and Lee being held for ransom at the compound of a Mexican drug lord, horse thief, and wannabe rodeo promoter. There are sweat lodge ceremonies, more horse thefts, wild pursuits through Arizona and across the Mexican border, a big shootout, and a fatal accident. There are revelations concerning the meaning of three ancient magic words and the real identities of Lee and Paul. There’s even another appearance of the winged stallion, who again serves as transportation to the great beyond.
It sounds exciting, and it could be if the characters were not so one-dimensional; if the reader understood, even for a moment, what motivated them; and if the characters’ personalities didn’t change drastically and unexpectedly to suit plot meanderings.
For example, a 93-year-old neighbor, described as a brilliant educator and inventor, greets a Stiles family member on one page by shouting, “if it ain’t you….” He then conducts an erudite discourse on the mind-body connection and the mysteries of the universe. Next he’s back to hollering “Horsefeathers!” and “I ain’t helpless yet.”
What passes for symbolism is expressed in exchanges like this one between Jennifer and her mother-in-law, Lucy Stiles.
Jennifer: “Let’s make eggs sunny side up this morning. These are happy days again.”
Lucy: “What a wonderful thought, Jennifer. Besides, I think Lee and Hazard like their eggs that way.”
Lucy, by the way, is the sole character with any depth and that’s only because she’s a stereotype. Lucy is the crusty-on-the-outside-tender-on-the-inside, Bible-quoting ranch wife whose unwavering faith helps her remain unruffled regardless of the lemons life squeezes onto her open wounds.
But she can be a tad, shall we say, unchristian.
“Please, Lord God,” Lucy prays for a Native American healer whom she and her family have invited to their ranch to cure Oliver, “… please, forgive his pagan ways.”
This is just one of numerous unsettling references to characters who are not Anglos. The same Ute healer has a “white man education,” which leads Lucy to fear that “Oliver might not respond to an educated medicine man.”
Paul, we are told repeatedly, is a “warm and engaging black man,” a “black-American friend,” “a black veterinarian,” “an elderly black man,” “a black man with a large gray mustache,” or simply “this black man.”
Paul even gets into this act, expressing concern that another character “might not welcome someone of my race.” This character in turn chortles, “You may be pretty, Lucy, but your friend is more colorful than you….”
What appear to be careless errors abound, not just in the Stiles’ family tree, but in consistent misspellings of words like “Chipeta” and “Socorro” and references to things like “yearly [yearling] calves” and the “National Immigration Service.” Author Arthur Zapel happens to be the founder, executive editor, and chairman of Meriwether Publishing, Ltd., which published this book. Meriwether is described as “a niche publishing house of theatrical arts books and video productions.” Sweet Uncertainty is Zapel’s first novel.
This book would have benefited from thorough and extensive editing and better writing, because the overall concept is truly imaginative.
— Lynda La Rocca