Review by Booklist Review
This memoir completes Urrea's Border Trilogy; the other books in the work are Across the Wire (1993) and By the Lake of Sleeping Children (1996). Urrea was born in Tijuana, Mexico, of an Anglo mother and Mexican father, but moved with them to San Diego at the age of three. There his identity was challenged regularly, both in the barrio where he lived and in his own home, where he was caught in the ongoing cultural battle between his parents. Uncomplicated intelligence, compassion, and humor permeate the seven distinct chapters of this book, whether Urrea is relating the macho escapades of the young males of his extended family, expounding on his tutelage by the good sisters at St. Jude's Catholic grade school, or describing the loving, earthy couple who helped raise him. Urrea is not simply a great writer and a wonderful storyteller; he is completely enamored with words and language--not so much as tools of the trade but as life's sustenance, "the only bread we can share." --Grace Fill
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Urrea's elegant, painful memoir completes the poet/novelist's Border Trilogy, following Across the Wire and By the Lake of Sleeping Children. The son of an Anglo-American mother and a Mexican father, Urrea muses on the frustrations and logical fallacies of anti-Mexican racism as he traces the often-forgotten multicultural origins of Anglo-American culture and language. Particularly moving is his account of his mother's horrifying experiences in the Red Cross during WWII. After being seriously wounded and witnessing the horrors of Buchenwald, she took refuge in San Francisco, where she met Urrea's father, the then blonde-haired, blue-eyed top security man to the Mexican president. By the time Urrea was born in 1955, though, the family was barely making ends meet in Tijuana, where they stayed until Urrea was three. In meandering, discursive portraits, Urrea chronicles his growth, from childhood in San Diego to a cross-country trip in writer Edward Abbey's car, during which he reminisces about the betrayal he felt discovering the anti-Mexican-immigrant sentiments of his favorite writer. Over time, Urrea's mother rejects her son's Mexican origins, even after he begins teaching at Harvard, declaring, "You are not a Mexican! Why can't you be called Louis instead of Luis?" Urrea's interests are not only in the personal but include, for example, the etymology of racist slang: Mexicans came to be called "greasers" because they had been the only people with the skills to grease the wheel axles of covered wagons traveling west; "gringos" because of "Green Grow the Lilacs," a favorite of American soldiers during the Mexican-American War. This is not, however, just a book about race. In fact, it's just as much about writing, and at its best Urrea's staccato phrases build up to a vivid, often brutal image. (Sept.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
(c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved
Review by Library Journal Review
"Words are the only bread we can really share," is the peaceful conclusion reached by the author of these energetic and darkly humorous memoirs about a childhood divided between Mexico and the United States. The third part of the trilogy begun with Across the Wire (LJ 1/93), this book establishes Urrea's prominence among Chicano writers. Whether he is describing the politics of his bicultural family or the polarities of a place like Tijuana, he deftly dissects the bilingual jokes and clichs of Chicano culture. The pace of the storiesÄoften based on dialog and vivid anecdoteÄis brisk. The content can be tender (e.g., when dealing with older female faith healers) or brutal (when describing the realities of borderland machismo). The essential tone, however, is of self-deprecating humor about the challenge of explaining a dual identity, a task he accomplishes with passion and understanding. Recommended for Latino literature collections.ÄRebecca Martin, Northern Illinois Univ., DeKalb (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
(c) Copyright Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
Review by Kirkus Book Review
In a memoir traversing some of the autobiographical territory covered in his previous books, poet and novelist Urrea (By the Lake of Sleeping Children, 1996; Across the Wire, 1993, etc.) delivers the last installment of his self-styled ``border trilogy.'' Urrea, born in Tijuana, Mexico, to a white mother and a Mexican father, says he's not old enough to write his memoir, but he feels compelled to share his ``observations''; this book is an assemblage of notes divided into several essays. Part One, ``Nobody's Son,'' expands upon the author's sense of his Chicano self: He describes himself alternately as a son of the border and as nobody's son. ``Home isn't just a place, according to Urrea, it is also a language,'' and today he feels wraiths, his parents' spirits, hovering over his shoulder as he writes. Too often this writing belies an overreliance on paradox and irony (he says he's now nobody's son yet everyone's brother), but in describing his family's emigration to the US, Urrea's style is epigrammatic, employing quick stops and starts and short, one-sentence paragraphs. Part Two opens with stories of a Tijuana boyhood. Though an essay on Edward Abbey and the ``Dead Ed'' industry in Tucson seems tacked on for regional effect, Urrea's pieces are otherwise ordered to give a nonlinear treatment of time. The best, titled ``Sanctuary,'' returns to his childhood and introduces us to Mama Chayo and her husband, Abelino, who looked after the young Luis while his parents worked. The book ends flatly with a rambling piece, ``Leaving Shelltown,'' that describes Urrea's driving east through desert and over prairies, the attendant ghosts supposedly traveling with him. Lacking narrative drive and depth, Urrea's book is not quite a memoir, but the fragmented notes that compose these essays are often moving nonetheless.
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