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Xocomil: The Winds of Atitlán
XOCOMIL (Show-coh-meel), The Winds of Atitlán.
The novel spans what many historians term the Guatemalan Civil War. That, unfortunately, does not include the United State's participation in that war, or begin to describe how it was experienced by the oppressed indigenous Maya.
The story begins and ends at Lake Atitlán. It travels from traditional Maya villages through the war-torn mountains of Guatemala; from cornfields in Kansas through the jungles of Vietnam; from pot-filled hills in Northern California through the psychedelic haunts of San Francisco to the ruins, and magic mushrooms, of Southern Mexico. It is about simple lands full of complex intrigues. And hope. Always hope.
Jaime is a poor Maya boy from Santa Catarina Palopó--a good son, a dreamer--unable to escape the harsh realities of Indian life.Jake is a farm boy from Salina, Kansas--also a dreamer--who, like Jaime, must survive a war and its many nightmares.Aura is a Maya girl from San Antonio Palopó--a practical thinker--trying to avoid the painful truths that threaten her slight semblance of peace. Luanne is from San Francisco, California, and has no idea who she is until a near death experience makes her a seer--sometimes of things she would rather not know.
Atitlán is translated by some as where the rainbow gets its colors; by others as the place where water gathers. In either case, a good name for a lake. It is a thousand feet deep. It hides a lot. But its surface reflects a world of human behavior that often taints the beauty of this magical place.
Xocomil is a word unique to Atitlán. It refers to the lake’s strong afternoon wind. Originally it meant the demon’s fury. Since the invasion of Spaniards and Catholicism, however, some converted Maya have taken it to mean the wind that carries away sin.
Regardless of meaning, the Xocomil blows nearly every day. Sometimes with fury.
The novel spans what many historians term the Guatemalan Civil War. That, unfortunately, does not include the United State's participation in that war, or begin to describe how it was experienced by the oppressed indigenous Maya.
The story begins and ends at Lake Atitlán. It travels from traditional Maya villages through the war-torn mountains of Guatemala; from cornfields in Kansas through the jungles of Vietnam; from pot-filled hills in Northern California through the psychedelic haunts of San Francisco to the ruins, and magic mushrooms, of Southern Mexico. It is about simple lands full of complex intrigues. And hope. Always hope.
Jaime is a poor Maya boy from Santa Catarina Palopó--a good son, a dreamer--unable to escape the harsh realities of Indian life.Jake is a farm boy from Salina, Kansas--also a dreamer--who, like Jaime, must survive a war and its many nightmares.Aura is a Maya girl from San Antonio Palopó--a practical thinker--trying to avoid the painful truths that threaten her slight semblance of peace. Luanne is from San Francisco, California, and has no idea who she is until a near death experience makes her a seer--sometimes of things she would rather not know.
Atitlán is translated by some as where the rainbow gets its colors; by others as the place where water gathers. In either case, a good name for a lake. It is a thousand feet deep. It hides a lot. But its surface reflects a world of human behavior that often taints the beauty of this magical place.
Xocomil is a word unique to Atitlán. It refers to the lake’s strong afternoon wind. Originally it meant the demon’s fury. Since the invasion of Spaniards and Catholicism, however, some converted Maya have taken it to mean the wind that carries away sin.
Regardless of meaning, the Xocomil blows nearly every day. Sometimes with fury.
464 pages, Paperback
Published January 4, 2016
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October 6, 2026
Max Meynor is a tortured artist near the end of his life. We know because we’re dragged through the barbed wire of his memories and mental gyrations as he repeatedly paints and repaints a huge canvas that blocks the view from his windows. We learn his story through his stream-of-consciousness recollections. He has flashbacks, and then he changes his painting to reflect the flashbacks. He lives near the coast in California, in what has become a housing development, ugly urban sprawl, but his house used to border fields and pastures. He begins by painting the recalled farm scenes he mourns, but as darker memories surface, his canvas changes. His past plays on an endless torture loop that he sometimes can’t escape. His memories, those repressed and not, come flowing back in no particular order. Bits and pieces, specific scenes, and whole chunks of his past interweave with real-time interaction with his daughter and grandson. As he loses continuity in the present, he goes ever deeper into events from decades earlier, memories he’s suppressed because of the pain they cause.
There’s no traditional plot to Beneath the Paint by David Mohrmann, just a starkly, realistically portrayed descent into dementia at the same time Max’s life plays on his mental screen. The tension arises from our view of his unfolding memories; he knows what has happened, for the most part, but we only find out as he relives those experiences. The ones that he’s buried are shown to us as they’re revealed to him. His anguish, the failings he believes he’s guilty of, quite literally color the canvas he compulsively works on. From the beginning of the story, he alludes to people and happenings in his past, but we have to wait for that part of the mental movie to find out who and what.
Mohrmann’s descriptions of nature and scenery soar; they’re exquisitely beautiful. Otherwise, his writing is matter of fact, almost flat in tone. The emotions that Max feels, both as his older self and his younger one, are related at one remove, because we merely watch as Max goes through the traumas in his life. He references his terrible childhood, but for the most part, we have to take his word for it that his parents were dysfunctional; not many details are offered. This straightforward, unvarnished voice is a very effective way to conduct us through the ugliness of various incidents that Max revisits. Everything is shown in a clear light, all the better to see the impacts on Max. Warmth bleeds through at the end, however, when Max comes full circle.
This book is the story of a journey, often a dark one, with terrifying times, loneliness, and uphill battles. At the point when we meet him, Max cannot tolerate his life until he breaks through the barriers he’s erected to help him survive. When he forces himself to confront his past, the barriers disappear. In more ways than one, he finds out what is beneath the paint.
There’s no traditional plot to Beneath the Paint by David Mohrmann, just a starkly, realistically portrayed descent into dementia at the same time Max’s life plays on his mental screen. The tension arises from our view of his unfolding memories; he knows what has happened, for the most part, but we only find out as he relives those experiences. The ones that he’s buried are shown to us as they’re revealed to him. His anguish, the failings he believes he’s guilty of, quite literally color the canvas he compulsively works on. From the beginning of the story, he alludes to people and happenings in his past, but we have to wait for that part of the mental movie to find out who and what.
Mohrmann’s descriptions of nature and scenery soar; they’re exquisitely beautiful. Otherwise, his writing is matter of fact, almost flat in tone. The emotions that Max feels, both as his older self and his younger one, are related at one remove, because we merely watch as Max goes through the traumas in his life. He references his terrible childhood, but for the most part, we have to take his word for it that his parents were dysfunctional; not many details are offered. This straightforward, unvarnished voice is a very effective way to conduct us through the ugliness of various incidents that Max revisits. Everything is shown in a clear light, all the better to see the impacts on Max. Warmth bleeds through at the end, however, when Max comes full circle.
This book is the story of a journey, often a dark one, with terrifying times, loneliness, and uphill battles. At the point when we meet him, Max cannot tolerate his life until he breaks through the barriers he’s erected to help him survive. When he forces himself to confront his past, the barriers disappear. In more ways than one, he finds out what is beneath the paint.
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