Book Review: "The Milagro Beanfield War" (1974)

First of all, welcome to my blog! Starting a blog - a place to share my thoughts, opinions, and ideas - is something that has been swimming around in my head for a while now, and I finally decided to do it, in part so that I would have someplace to share this review.

One of my News Year's resolutions for 2026 was to read twenty books, and actually, The Milagro Beanfield War by John Nichols is book #20. Before this year, I don't know that I had read a novel since college, and overall, I was reading far fewer than twenty books per year. Reading more is part of a larger effort I am undertaking to consume less digital entertainment and overall practice digital minimalism, something I will write more about in future blog posts. 

On to the review.

The Milagro Beanfield War is set in 1970s northern New Mexico and follows the residents of the impoverished, rural farming community Milagro as Joe Mondragon takes a stand against wealthy landowner Ladd Devine and his company's plans to dam the river that runs through Milagro and redevelop the surrounding area into a golf course and upscale subdivision (displacing the locals in the process), by illegally irrigating his bean field, in violation of state and local ordinances. This small, seemingly innocuous action sets off an increasingly desperate and absurd chain of events as Ladd Devine and the state government on one side, and the people of Milagro on the other, decide how to deal with Joe's protest and what it means.   

The story features a pretty large ensemble cast and is told from a third person omniscient point of view, bouncing between characters in short vignettes. It is funny, and I found myself laughing out loud at more than a few parts. The scene in which ninety-three-year-old Amarante Cordova, who has outlived most of his adult children, attempts to buy ammunition for his ancient Colt Peacemaker so that he can defend Joe's beanfield, leading local shopkeeper Nick Rael to say, "You can't buy bullets with food stamps," and the scene in which local real estate agent Bud Gleason launches into a sneezing fit while using the bathroom, interrupting his flow, as he, his wife, and their bratty daughter shout back and forth at each other across the house, stand out as two of the funniest moments. And there are many, many more. 

There is a political thriller aspect to this story; two boardroom scenes, one near the beginning of the novel and one near the end, in which the governor, the state engineer, and other power brokers discuss from afar the events unfolding in Milagro, how to deal with them, and the political implications represent some of my favorite parts of the novel. An undercover state policeman, Kyril Montana, is deployed to put a stop to a possible rebellion before it begins; these scenes, in which he observes Milagro, strategizes, and methodically executes his plan, are incredibly gripping.  

An outsider, Herbie Goldfarb, temporarily relocated to Milagro as part of a volunteer program so that he can avoid the draft, serves as an audience stand-in, and it is through his perspective that we see the harsh realities of life in desolate, impoverished Milagro: decrepit, snake-, ant-, and skunk-infested living quarters; the brutal, desensitizing violence of animal husbandry; the loneliness and isolation of rural life, especially for an outsider; and the constant paranoia that hangs over a community where everyone is armed. 

Overall, it is in these characterizations and its sense of place that this novel excels: Milagro's town square and its single parking meter, the Pilar Cafe, the Frontier Bar, and the porch of Nick Rael's store, where the townspeople congregate; the North-South Highway and its painted-on cattle guards; the slightly more urbanized Chamisaville and Donya Luz, where the residents of Milagro go to shop and see drive-in movies. Often, the author steps out of the main narrative to explain some aspect of this world - like the 1935 Interstate Water Compact or the intricacies of federal grazing permits and the effects these policies have on subsistence farmers, or how telephone party lines worked (which I had heard of, but never fully understood) and the rumor mills they generated in small town, midcentury America. These sections are equally as fascinating as anything in the main narrative, almost Robert Caro-esque in their world-building and expressive, imagery-laden prose.

If I could compare The Milagro Beanfield War to another novel, with its ensemble cast, funny, sometimes over-the-top characterizations, witty dialogue, and the way in which so many story threads tie together perfectly in the end, it might be John Kennedy Toole's A Confederacy of Dunces. 

As I was reading Milagro, I was reminded of the recent Noahpinion blog post "In defense of Asian American art" in which blogger Noah Smith argues that contemporary expectations around cultural identity can discourage authors from writing about groups they don't belong to, potentially preventing worthwhile stories from being told.

A majority of the characters in The Milagro Beanfield War are Chicano and the story deals with how the subsistence farming lifestyle of the people of Milagro, which they and their ancestors have been living long before the United States annexed New Mexico, is seen as backwards and fundamentally incongruous with twentieth-century American life, and the efforts undertaken by the state and federal government, both before and during the events of the story, to stamp it out. Of course, race relations are presented in this novel with plenty of nuance: Anglo characters Bud Gleason, who stands to make plenty of money from Ladd Devine's development projects, Flossie Devine, Ladd Devine's sad, canary-in-a-golden-cage wife, and Horsethief Shorty, Ladd Devine's real McCoy ranch hand, liked by everyone and the character who best straddles the novel's racial and class divides, each have doubts about whether they are on the right side of the brewing conflict; Kyril Montana, the Anglo plainclothes state policeman (who the people of Milagro, hearing his name only, think may be Chicano), feels strange as the de facto leader of an otherwise all-Chicano search party; Bruno Martinez, a Chicano state policeman, is ostracized by the residents of Milagro, including his own father; and Charlie Bloom, a schlubbier, less-self-actualized Atticus Finch, agrees to represent Joe Mondragon in the coming legal battle because it's the right thing to do, all the while looking for a way out. 

However, the fact that author John Nichols is white raises the question: Does The Milagro Beanfield War belong in discussions about Chicano literature, and more importantly, how would it be received if it were written today? 

The novel ends with a glimmer of hope, however fleeting, emphasizing what I took to be its central message: That the people of Milagro have a right to their way of life, as flawed, dirty, and violent as it might be; and that they will continue to hold onto it, whatever is left of it, in the face of continued encroachment by those who don't understand them, as they have for hundreds of years, until there is nothing left for them to hold onto. 

I would absolutely recommend this novel and will be thinking about it and the town of Milagro for a long time.