A Sch-Condor Brings the Sun

When Sendero Luminoso (Shining Path) rebels invade Wasi, 27-year-old Pilar Achahuanco's Peruvian village, the disturbance is the latest in a 500-year saga of oppression and violence that Pilar knows only too well. In the 15th century, her Runa ancestors were forced by the Incas to settle in Wasi, more than two months away by foot from their tribal home. Pilar's ancestor Soona brought with her the stories of her past and taught them to her daughter, making her promise to ""keep the line.... She said we would lose our home but not ourselves,"" says Pilar, the 24th link in this unbroken chain of living human history. In this ambitious, thoughtful first novel, McGahan artfully splices Pilar's mystical, often brutal tales of her family's past into an account of her 20th-century romance with 33-year-old Arnie Wolcott, a wildlife biologist doing fieldwork in Peru. Exiled from Wasi by the rebels, Pilar accepts Arnie's offer to return with him to his home in Missoula, Mont. There, uprooted like Soona before her, Pilar finds strength in the collective wisdom of her forebears as she struggles with personal and family responsibility, ultimately dragging Arnie into a high-suspense escapade he'll never forget. When the action shifts abruptly from carefully observed descriptions of traditional Peruvian life to chatty scenes in Missoula, readers may feel as disoriented as the transplanted Pilar, but considering its scope (how many first novelists dare to cram more than 500 years between two covers?), McGahan's reflective narrative is an elegantly written, astonishingly cohesive debut. (Sept.)