Review: Some Final Beauty

 …and Other Stories

Review: Lisa Alvarez. Some Final Beauty And Other Stories. Reno and Las Vegas. U of Nevada Press, 2025.

Michael Sedano

Laurie, the miscreant working off her community service sentence, in the first story, "Everyone Was Singing 'Freiheit,'" struggles against empathy for the gente in the church building where the priest easily detects Laurie’s attempt to cheat the sentence by claiming to be in two places at the same time. “Bilocation,” the priest tells her, is something only a few Catholic saints managed.

The abashed Laurie is no saint yet despite her self-involvement and ennui, she cares about an old guy left behind after an earthquake evacuation. When old Max dies, Laurie walks off into the sunset with ambiguity in her wake. The reader wonders, will Laurie go straight or remain in her current state of suspended animation between her past and the unstated future? 

The opening story prepares readers to have a high tolerance for ambiguity. Laurie's struggle between her better self and her damaged persona defines a constant unspoken theme in Lisa Alvarez’ eleven stories of challenged women, crummy men, good men, hopeful women, in various forms of bilocation, constrained by present circumstances. 

Alvarez liberates some characters by giving them a future that resolves past circumstance, freeing others in their present time in leaps of perception and insight.

Alvarez doesn’t like to spell out endings, preferring to leave stories hanging in ambiguity or unfinished, both constituting varieties of bilocational perception. Does she, or doesn’t she? Can the past be like the present that was the future back then?

Psychological and emotional portraiture, together with keen attention to tiny details, blend with lightly concealed roman à clef portrayals to make reading Some Final Beauty (link) lots of fun, even in the face of the enormity of some people’s behavior.

The book’s second story, “A Pretty Penny,” introduces another running theme, social and neighborly activism. Robyn and June struggle to live as lesbians and that doesn’t work out—Robyn moves along to Isla Vista, a UCSB degree, a husband and kids. June stays in LA, disappointing her father that she is a “cultural worker”. The work doesn’t pay enough to pay the rent, so she lives by working numerous odd jobs.

One night, June sees a group of taggers across the street whose labor sends the woman into a reverie of the night she and Robyn tagged “War is Menstruation Envy” on a Federal building wall. She bounces back and forth from her now to her then, the unbothered kids spraying, Robyn and June on the lookout.

Many of the men in Alvarez’ collection are shits. There’s Cody, the fentanyl pusher at his victim’s funeral. There’s an unpleasant actor whose teevee persona matches his behavior in a restaurant. When the place can’t serve his wants he whines and embarrasses his two daughters. I’m not a teevee watcher, but I can see a balding unpleasant whiner in the, perhaps, eponymous role as himself.

A more telling roman à clef story pictures a lightly disguised Joan Baez and Antonio Villaraigosa. In an understated and sufficiently vicious take-down, the mayor begins the story hoping to talk the singer down from a black walnut tree. Alvarez paints a favorable up from nothing political success story for the mayor, before the reader sees him as a self-interested hypocrite whose interest lies not in rescuing his idealized folksinger but in repairing his crumbling public image. He used to be an ése and now he’s an object. Topping it off, he’s a philanderer who’s as likely to drive home to his wife, as to his upscale apartment in the Valley where his Sancha awaits.

Alvarez’ penultimate story, “False Flag” pulls readers in two directions. Linda, a sympathetic single mother, lives next door to a curmudgeonly man, a “gruff but reliable neighbor, who performs good deeds on one face, acts a total jerk on another. Is Matthew just another crank or a crypto hater?

Linda realizes the wingnut neighbor was at the Capitol on January 6. She reports him to the FBI who show up and arrest the scum. With him absent—in a good way while so many other men in other stories absent themselves in dastardly ways—Linda’s child Willow will care for the hens left behind. “We need the eggs,” Linda laughs, not guilty at all at fingering the traitor (my word.)

Eleven stories, eleven lives bouncing against their own histories, battered by circumstances, some escaping, other characters stuck in one place—maybe stuck; the author won’t tell. Lisa Alvarez' collection makes an enjoyable read that you can consume in a single sitting then leaf through to remember great phrases and characterizations, nod at familiar places and recent historical events, and share with friends and writers who enjoy seeing how it’s done, and done well.

Hot Tip For Arte Lovers!

Art enthusiast takes a 'selfie' with Linda Arreola (center) and Abel Alejandre

Saturday, September 6 arrived with hard decisions. There is a Judithe Hernandez exhibition, Rick Ortega in another venue, Will Loya at Avenue 50's new location, and, my choice, Linda Arreola at LAUNCH gallery in Hollywood.

Arreola's finely wrought architectural abstracts reflect a keen eye, steady hand, imaginative uses of color and respect for her neighborhoods, like the foto here, Arreola's celebration Eastern Avenue that borders Boyle Heights and East Los Angeles, the heart of Chicana Chicano LA. 

Paintings and sculptures fascinate viewers in this compact exhibition space at 170 S. La Brea, Los Angeles 90036. 

Be forewarned, Siri may direct you to Inglewood where there's a 170 S. La Brea. That is not where arte happens, it's a vacant structure near a good Soul Food restaurant. The real Launch LA is a short drive from Hollywood Blvd and Musso and Frank restaurant.

Coming to La Bloga-Tuesday: El Gluten-free Chicano and Guest Chefs

Gluten-free dining becomes problematic when restaurant staff don't know their ingredients. Cross-contamination looms as a constant threat to safe dining. Home cooking the only way to enjoy wondrous cuisine and feel entirely safe and content.

La Bloga-Tuesday will offer menus and recipes to please any palate and diner, even those who tremble at the words, "gluten-free." Next week launches the first in the series.