Caló Novels Explore Cultural Difference
Five Caló novels explore cultural difference both at home and across Hispania.

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Don Quixote Delusion Fuels Caló Novel
The chivalry of Don Quixote springs to life again when a menagerie of the Quixotic fights for cultural diversity and social change against cultural differences in Latin America - this to save an abandoned one and a Mayan heritage.

El Don Quijote se Encuentran de Nuevo
Don Quijote springs to life once more when a menagerie Quijotesco fights cultural bias and cultural difference to protect a Hispanic heritage.

Multicultural Powers of Caló Novels
In four of his seven novels, Caló's multi cultural literature explores the endless reciprocation of endearment and exploitation engaged by diverse characters of different ethnicity or ethnic heritage.

Latin Lovers Heat Up Caló Novels
Latin lovers heat Caló novels whether set in the U.S. or the Southern Most of the Americas. The dark skins of passion and the white skins of arrogance accede to the ameliorating power of love in this Latin drama.

Cultural Changes Messengered
Cultural anthropology finds rich ground in Latino America where social change and social issues central to Hispanic culture shake the awareness of two North Americans who find themselves banded with modern Quixotes, their lives become themes of the picaresque, where Spanish literature stages the backdrops.

International Adoption Seeks Accountability
An international adoption turns homicidal when a homeless mother refuses to surrender her child to baby brokers.

Quixote Challenges
Hispanic Culture

Hispanic culture, long vulnerable to child theft, child abandonment, adoption fraud and adoptive parent abuse, empowers Quixote or Quijote to battle child racketeers for social change and cultural diversity.

Hispanic Culture
Stirs In English Literature

Upon a backdrop of The Passion of the Christ, Hispanic heritage is divined from a culture that hides roots deep in loving, belonging, accepting & sharing - until, in this and one other international novel by Caló, encroachment leads to lethal justice.

Fuse To Caló Fiction:
Cultural Diversity

Cultural diversity lights the slow fuse of the fiction that fires the often worrisome endings of Caló novels.

The Year 1504 ¾ A Village of La Mancha, Spain

    "I carry a great secret for your ears tired of words of wills and rites, my faithful squire," Don Quixote whispered from his deathbed to Sancho Panza.
    "Speak to me, sir."
    The old knight-errant slowly twisted his neck so that his eyes might directly meet those of the trusted companion who reinforced the pillow under his head. He took a slow breath. No sound came as he so slightly let it go.
    "Although chivalry has departed us in this domain," he began feebly, "that quality survives, my Sancho . . . in the ways of honor."
    "What? Oh, sir! But you last said—"
    "I last said the truth." Quixote's voice came laggardly but deliberately. "I said that I renounce chivalry and the books that have carried that ideal to the epitome of fancy in our world—as do I renounce those who read the trash."
    "Which is to say that chivalry is dead and alive in these days, sire?"
    "No. No. Listen, for once, to what I say. I said¾"
    "Yes, master."
    "I said that chivalry is dead in this domain."
    "Here?"
    "Yes."
    "Then you do not intend another foray against the—"
    "No, no. I die. I go the way of my beloved Dulcinéa. To ashes and dust. To all that is decomposition of enchantment."
    "Oh, sir!"
    "No matter. Just listen to me before you drown me upon my own words."
    Sancho swallowed, then sighed. The good don continued.
    "There is a place where chivalry is not known, but where honor is fitting, rife, and waiting . . . waiting . . . " Quixote's eyes seemed to brighten, his voice to accelerate. "To spread again through the ranks of mankind. And . . . and to spread with the same ferocity by which it spawned all of the great civilizations that we now know."
    "There could be no such place on Earth, sir. Everywhere is ruined."
    "Ah! You fail to consider, my trusted: the New World."
    "Oh! Of the travels of Cristóbal Coronal."
    "You mean Cristóbal Colón. And, yes¾under the direction of the Great King Ferdinand and Queen Isabella. And of the writings since his fourth voyage whereby he again confirmed that a new territory exists between Spain and China."
    Sancho tightened the stretch of the blanket to better warm his master's chest.
    "Of course. Of course, my honorable."
    Quixote paused and eyed his squire curiously.
    "You doubt me. But I have seen a copy of the map where Colón outlined a great gulf; where he landed in a profoundly deep harbor in a place he has named Honduras. There, he testifies, dwell thousands who imbue nobility¾Indians, he wrote."
    "Indians? Like in the India that his brother, De Polco, reported?"
    "That would be Marco Polo, not De Polco, and that would be two-hundred years ago¾even though there does remain some confusion from the man's accounts as to where India and Indians are precisely located. But what I wish to say to you, dear Sancho, before my strength too greatly wanes, is that the burden of honor must be shifted from our ignoble, fanciful, and masked civilization to that other vague but energetic place."
    "Whooh, oooh, whooh!"
    "An appropriate response for a practical simpleton," the old man replied irritably. But he let the emotion flee as quickly as had his words arrived. He sent his squire an apologetic smile and rested a hand upon the other's arm. "If you wonder why I laden you with these things, poor Sancho, I do so for this reason: I feel with certainty, in the depths of my soul, that a new world complete with noble and conscientious Indians awaits the Spaniard¾the Spaniard who will define for them the stuff of honor¾the stuff from which they will enact a chivalric code that will carry the world to new heights of truth, bravery, romance, and gentility."
    "But . . . but dear don! Everyone knows that each generation, each civilization, decays in the very face of the one that spawns it. How¾"
    A spasm of coughs overcame the dying master. When the blockage passed, weakened by the excitement caused by his own words, he closed his eyes and fought for breath. Sancho clutched him from behind and raised him so that his lungs could better fret for air. Still, the old man went faint. The squire cried out for help barely sooner than Don Quixote's niece, followed by the housekeeper and barber, rushed in. The niece, wailing, shook the good don in a way that should have revived any person less than three days dead. The housekeeper tossed a cool rag upon the old man's forehead and the barber, brows raised quizzically, took the pulse at his wrist.
    To his benefit, the patient revived. He whispered his appreciation to his troupe of caregivers and, though in an advanced condition of weakness, convinced them not to worry for him. With a forced smile he motioned them from the room. Sancho, who operated in a state of confusion, trailed the leave-takers¾luckily so, in that he caught the wheezed summons his master sent him. He hurried back to bedside. Tearful but grateful, he dropped to his knees and took the hand Don Quixote extended.
    "What, master? What?"
    "Go there," the dying man mumbled through lips almost stilled.
    "Go there?"
    "Go there."
    "To the old China you claim to be a new world?"
    "Yes. Fine. Fine. Just sail westward. Lay a foundation of honor for the new order that is to arise from whatever fertile shore you find your disembarkation."
    "Oh! Señor!"
    "Dear Sancho . . . my honest; my most dedicated. Go there!"
    "Oh . . . oh . . . !" Sancho trembled nervously. "And . . . if I went . . . and if I tutored . . . I . . . I would do so in the name of the famous Don Quixote?"
    The old man swallowed as if he swallowed something bitter. The volume of his speech dropped to a murmur. He struggled to make sense with his words in the face of some other preoccupation.
    "To credit Don Quixote would be wrong, Sancho. He no longer is. I die as . . . " He turned his head and focused upon a wisp of candle smoke between bed and wall. "As I am. As Alonso Quixano. Alonso Quixano . . ."
    Another pause came. It was the pause that defines the abyss between those alive and those ghostly.
    "The Good," Sancho whispered into the silence, "Alonso Quixano the Good, you are."
    He sighed a long sigh. He twisted his head against the knot in his throat. Then he closed the eyes of his master, stilled.
    He started to rise, but stopped. He drew himself a last time to the great don's side and spoke through a hiss, near hectic.
    "Even if the total of your bequeath to me could pay for such a journey, my grace, I could never use a name as silly as Sancho Panza. It would not be fit for a mission so nobly drawn by one of title and great in history as you."
    He peered into the old man's sightless face and shook his head sadly. He stood.
    "No. You will never find the name of Panza in that realm you call Honduras," he whispered, "Only the good of Quixano should enjoy a start there."
    He called for all who waited beyond the door of the candle-lit chamber to assist him in the management of the bier of Alonso Quixano the Good, the great Don Quixote of La Mancha.