The versatility of Margaret Donnelly
By the time you read Margaret Donnelly’s third book, The Path of Lord Jaguar, you become aware of her versatility. You will not find formulaic stories between the covers of a Donnelly novel; unlike some authors, each of Donnelly’s works flaunt unique style and character. Her mind is prismatic, and each of her novels shines with a different light and frequency.
For example, The Song of the Goldencocks is perhaps the most worldly, diving into politics, economics and history of Venezuela, Cuba and the Middle East. Spirits of Venezuela is an intensely personal spiritual autobiography that takes place primarily in the author’s native country, Venezuela. The Path of Lord Jaguar is a wedding of corporeal and spiritual, rooted in historical and current perspectives of minorities and the oppressed while also exploring the languages of dreams, symbols and spiritual practices of Kemi, an African Ifa priestess, and Pablo, a Mexican Maya shaman. Jaguar’s characters carry ancestral stories, beliefs and rituals from their countries of origin to the place where the book is set, in an opulent Dallas neighborhood that rests on the kuxan sum, a forgotten ancient trade route connecting North and South America.
While the three books are remarkably different in flavor, at the crux they are united by a common theme. Donnelly’s books all attest to a main character(s) process of empowerment and victory over historical and current oppressors.
In Jaguar, the villain-oppressor is familiar. We first met him in Goldencocks, but now he has carried his evil inheritance to a new hemisphere, where Kemi and Pablo encounter him. Not only must Kemi and Pablo fight this man, but they must also battle systemic oppression in the form of immigration laws that threaten to take away all they have worked to build. Donnelly’s lifelong career as an immigration attorney lends deep understanding to the emotional and legal plight of her characters as they fight to transform their struggles into opportunities and hope.
While such challenges play out in the material world, Kemi and Pablo are also engaged in spiritual warfare against dark energy linked to the villain’s evil past. They must race time to correct the problem of the dark energy before it poisons the energetic well from which this planet’s inhabitants drink. This storyline begs the question, what happens when one continues to reap benefits of a bloody past for which no atonement or reparations have been made, as in the case of Jaguar’s villain?
A multidimensional adventure, Jaguar provokes questions about justice, the heart and the hereafter. Once again, Donnelly has birthed a beautiful book.
