Review: Fortunate Son. Walter Mosley.

Hachette, 2006 ISBN: 0316114715


Michael Sedano

Walter Mosley writes some of literature's best characters in his "colored" series novels featuring Easy Rawlins. Easy, his lethal sidekick Mouse, and a host of others, people almost a dozen novels spanning a period from the end of WWII to the 1965 Watts riots. Ostensibly a detective writer, Mosley spins a crime yarn against the backdrop of Los Angeles black / white race relations, and the neighborhoods of Central and, now and then East Los.

Every now and then, Mosley tosses in something different. Socrates Fortlow finds a warm welcome among some readers. A sci-fi novel here and there mystifies some readers. A new lead character shows up and perhaps dissatisfies long-time “colored” readers. Now Mosley brings forth Thomas Beerman and Eric Nolan in what is likely to be their only novel. This is a novel you do not want to miss.

There’s no crime, per se, in Fortunate Son. Instead, Mosley tracks the lifespan of brothers Thomas and Eric from birth to young adulthood today, paralleling black and white L.A., poverty and privilege, class and color. Which is far too simplistic. As with the boys in this novel—and Richard Montoya’s Water & Power—the surface fails to account for the person behind the persona. As Thomas will say, people look at his brother and they see themselves as in a mirror.

Eric’s mother dies with his birth, leaving his heart surgeon father and Vietnamese nurse, Ahn, to care for the boy’s upbringing. The child is beautiful, blonde, large, and squally. Child of privilege, but off to a rough start. As Eric grows, Ahn begins to fear his unnatural charm, as if everything Eric wins comes at serious, even lethal, cost to loved ones. Thus, when Thomas calls "home" Ahn answers the phone and tells the little boy not to call again.

Thomas’ father leaves Branwyn for his other woman, May, a month after learning of the pregnancy. When Thomas is born, he has a hole in his lung and delicate health. To prevent infection, Tommy lives in a plastic box. His mother visits and talks to the baby through the bubble. Child of color, off to a rough start, but this is only the beginning of a truly ugly and tragic career.

Branwyn explains life to the neonate. Sitting by the bubble, she relates her love for Elton but not enough to abort in order to keep him. The father has the choice to go or stay, but Branwyn couldn’t ask Thomas “if you minded if I didn’t have you and if you didn’t have a life to live.” These literally are words to live by, and Thomas understands their truth no matter what is happening to him.

Minas Nolan has an office across the hall from Intensive Care. He sees and falls in love with Branwyn. In a heartbeat they start a relationship that escalates from friendship to a kiss, to bed, to constant companionship. Branwyn and Tommy move out of a tiny rental in the Crenshaw district to a four story Beverly Hills mansion. Branwyn becomes the mother Eric never had, the boys live as brothers, cared for by Ahn, nurtured in the top private kindergarten. Their natures ideally complement one another. Thomas is cerebral and insightful like his mother. Eric is bold, smart, and charismatic like no one has seen before. Then Branwyn dies. The doctor cannot keep the first grader when Elton and Branwyn’s mother demand custody.

Now the story grows ugly. Within a few weeks of moving from white LA to black LA, first grader Thomas is homeless, dealing drugs, moving in and out the everyday violence that characterizes his new part of the city. At the age of ten years, Thomas is surrogate husband and father to Monique and her baby, working for a vicious drug dealer to pay the rent, keep them fed.

Why? This story goes beyond Mosley's standard agenda. In his colored stories (e.g., Devil in a Blue Dress, Black Betty, Little Scarlett), race always crops its ugly head to complicate Easy's existence. Despite the hardships, Easy invariably finds a way to win, to affirm the dignity of black people, to give white people lessons in morality, humility, or comeuppance. Easy's world is simple: black versus white.

Not so simple, however, is the world of Fortunate Son. Consider the relationship between Thomas and his father Elton. Elton is a big, powerful, sad man. Elton wants his boy to grow up knowing he's black. To prove the point, Elton refuses to walk the first grader to school, despite the day before's assault by a group of punks who slapped and kicked Thomas to the ground.

“I’m scared,” the first grader tells his dad. This is page 94 of a 300+ page work. “I’m scared too,” his dad admits. Thomas, who has seen his father sexually assault May, take two headshots from LAPD batons before being subdued, asks, “You?”

“You know, a black man out here in these streets got a thousand enemies. Men want his money, his woman, his life, and he don’t even know who they are. That’s why I took you, Tommy. I want you to learn what I know. Do you understand what I’m sayin’ to you?”

Tommy understands relativity. He tells Elton it’s like a rabbit, a lion, and an elephant. The rabbit fears the lion. The lion fears the elephant. Feeling an elemental truth challenged, the father spouts back, “The lion is the king of the jungle”. The boy acknowledges the father’s myth but confounds him, “I know. But he’s still afraid of the elephant.” Mosley makes the point: “Father and son stared into each other’s eyes for a moment. Elton had the feeling that he’d missed something, but he had no idea what that something was. 'Go on to school now, boy,' he said at last."

Eric grows into the most popular boy on campus. As a ninth grader at the best private school in LA, he challenges the biggest man on campus to a tennis match and wins. The loser's girlfriend, a gorgeous and pampered senior, finds Eric so irresistible she invites him for a ride and gives herself completely over to Eric. This is not love but obsessive compulsion. Eric exerts a powerful pull on the woman's feelings. She abandons plans for an Ivy League college to take a factotum job and provide Eric with whatever pleasures he cares to give her. She finds him cold and distant. They have a daughter when Eric is in ninth grade.

Looking at Eric's power, Ahn's fear that Eric is bad luck to anyone close to him seems prescient. Thomas, meanwhile, free from Eric's influence, has been shot by police. The youngster is sentenced to juvenile prison by a heartless system, where Tommy, who now carries the nickname "Lucky", is regularly beaten and raped by his tormenters, which seem to be anyone Lucky comes into contact with. Released to a group home, the teenaged Lucky walks away to become a street person who wanders the streets holding conversations with his mother and a dead girl.

Is Fortunate Son a fairy tale? Will Thomas find a life? Will Eric find love? Will all live happily ever after? Simple as these questions appear, they take on vital importance as Mosley unfolds his story. Eric’s is not a likeable portrait, but he doesn't do anything deliberately to hurt others. There certainly exists pain all around him. Pobrecito Tommy. Lucky fills the pages an object of complete empathy for the senselessness of what has befallen him. Yet, Thomas considers himself truly lucky, repeating Branwyn’s words confessed to the baby in the bubble.

Mosley fills the pages with anxiety. Lucky's precarious teetering on the edge of reality and freedom, Eric bringing misery into the world. What can next go wrong? Then matters grow worse.

Ultimately, Fortunate Son is a mystery. It's a mystery why Walter Mosley has put this story out there. This is not a typical Mosley world. Never the twain meet. Being black means leading a wretched outsider existence. Being white means privilege and comfort, whatever may lurk beneath the outward vestiges. In the end, well, that would be telling.

Mosley telegraphs a lot of his moves giving the plot of Fortunate Son a lot of predictability. Which adds to the fun when Mosley twists up a surprise ending that will leave a reader laughing that Walter Mosley can write such melodrama. And he not only gets away with it, he makes it work.

Reading a Walter Mosley novel is never just about character, plot, and affectionate local color. Read the writing. The writer introduces the evil Beverly Hills power broker in only a few paragraphs, but from the first words the character’s sleaziness oozes off the page. Dialect writing doesn’t capture the oracy of speech and shouldn’t try to. Marking dialect with generous use of the apostrophe character and subject verb agreement can be tiring and misleading. Mosley uses dialect to signal Thomas’ increasing distance from the kid who “talks funny” in the first grade because he speaks Beverly Hills English in the Crenshaw district. The only jarring element in this powerful story was a typo at a climactic moment. All that work putting the reader on edge as the awful moments arrive, only to misspell the name of a pistol. He compounds it by naming the gun again, a few pages on, corrected.

Ni modo. Walter Mosely stands alone as a Los Angeles writer. And a crime writer. That he’s determined to ‘splain what it’s like to be black in the anglo United States is his misery. For readers, it produces an excellent story, and the case of Fortunate Son, a true gem.

Before I sign off for the week, here's something for your weekend calendars if you're in my favorite city in Texas, SanAnto. From La Bloga reader Gregg Barrios:

OPEN HOUSE: 6:30 p.m., First Friday, Sept. 1, 2006 Join us for light refreshments and a reading of short scenes from works by San Antonio playwright Gregg Barrios

Dark Horse, Pale Rider Katherine Anne Porter and her would be Chicano biographer “Barrios brings the loves of Porter to life. A classic cultural embrace.” - San Antonio Current

Rancho Pancho Tennessee Williams and his Mexican muse. “An intriguing notion. Barrios’ ambitious play asserts that Williams stormy relationship with Rodriguez was the inspiration of the fireworks between Stanley and Blanche.” – San Antonio Express-News

Plus a special preview of a new work-in-progress Candythe life and times of legendary Texas Bad Girl Candy Barr.

Sounds like an interesting evening. Maybe Gregg will tell La Bloga readers how the reading went.

Maybe you have a good book you've just read and have a burning energy to tell people about it. Write it out! Send your guest reviews to La Bloga or click there. Sabes que, we're always happy to invite gente to share their critical views on important arts and literature issues.

So it goes for the last week of August, 2006. See you next time,
mvs

Memoir travels maze of sex, family and self-acceptance

Book review by Daniel Olivas

What makes a writer?

This seemingly simple question can elicit many complex answers and even more questions. Case in point: Rigoberto González's poetic and heartbreaking memoir, Butterfly Boy: Memories of a Chicano Mariposa (The University of Wisconsin Press, $24.95 hardcover).

González is an award-winning author of poetry, fiction and children's books. He is also a book critic contributing regularly to the El Paso Times.

How did González, the son of migrant farmworkers whose first language was Spanish, become González the writer? Answers begin to emerge from his painful assertion of himself as a gay man in a culture steeped in machismo.

González tells of his journey into adulthood and a life of literature in a nonlinear fashion, moving back and forth from childhood to adulthood, Mexico to the United States, self-loathing to self-revelatory empowerment.

The book begins in Riverside, Calif., in 1990. González, as a college student at the Riverside campus of the University of California, has fallen in love with an older man who, as symbolized by painful yet beautiful "butterfly" marks he places upon González, brings both tenderness and brutality to the relationship. The unnamed lover cheats on González and doesn't hesitate to beat him up to establish his superiority over his young man. At times, González believes he deserves such brutality.

Other times, he is grateful to have escaped the oppressiveness of his family and its legacy of dropping out of high school to work in the fields. The escape comes in the form of literature. A sometimes-callous, sometimes-tender teacher named Dolly lends the young González a poetry book and works with him to subjugate his accent. And the fire is lit: "I became a closet reader at first, taking my book with me to the back of the landlord's house or into my parents' room, where I would mouth the syllables softly, creating my own muted music."

González then suffers the death of his mother when he is only 12. Compounding this loss, he is shipped off to live with his tyrannical grandfather. His own father -- who abuses alcohol and carouses with women --eventually starts another family, further alienating González. Again, books prove to be González's salvation, eventually leading to his surreptitious and successful application to college.

González remains closeted in both his sexuality and intellect, realizing that neither facet of his identity would be understood or appreciated by his family.

In the midst of scenes from his college life in Riverside and his adolescent exploration of sex and literature, González recounts a long and agonizing bus trip with his father. He leaves Riverside and travels to Indio, where his father lives, so they can begin their journey "into México, into the state of Michoacán, into the town of Zacapu, where my father was born, where my mother was raised, and where I grew up." This passage home takes on a special aura because González will turn 20 while there. Throughout the trip, González longs for his lover while seething with an almost uncontrollable anger toward his father. Throughout, he wonders if this trip was a mistake or a necessary part of becoming an adult.

What makes a writer? Obviously, talent is a necessary ingredient. And in the case of González, add to the mix hard work and a burning desire to be heard. Ultimately, it is a mysterious alchemy.

In any case, Butterfly Boy is a potent and poetic coming-of-age story about one man's acceptance of himself. There's no mystery in that.

[This review first appeared in the El Paso Times.]

◙ The Premio Aztlán Literary Award 2006: Call for Submissions!The Premio Aztlán Literary Prize is a national literary Prize, established to encourage and reward emerging Chicana and Chicano authors. Renowned author, Rudolfo Anaya and his wife, Patricia, founded Premio Aztlán in 1993, and the prize was reestablished in their honor in 2004 by the University of New Mexico Libraries.

A prize of $1000 will be given to a Chicana or Chicano writer for a work of fiction published in the 2006 calendar year. Authors who have published no more than two books are eligible for the prize. The winner will be expected to give a reading at the University of New Mexico Libraries in April 2007.

Publishers should submit a letter of nomination and authors should submit a letter of interest and resume. Letters should include appropriate contact information and be sent with five copies of the book by December 31, 2006 to:

Premio Aztlán Literary Prize
University Libraries, Dean's Office
MSC05 3020
1 University of New Mexico
Albuquerque, NM 87131

For questions, contact:

Teresa Marquez, Curator
Chicano/Hispano/Latino Library Program
"CHIPOTLE"
(505) 277-0582
andaluz@unm.edu

Before submitting, please visit the Library’s website and click “Premio Aztlán.”

◙ Francisco Aragón informs us that Brenda Cárdenas' poem, "Empty Spaces," from her chapbook, FROM THE TONGUES OF BRICK AND STONE (Momotombo Press, 2005), was be featured at Poetry Daily (http://www.poems.com/) on August 26, 2006. This will be the first time that a Momotombo Press poet will be featured here. And speaking of Francisco, Jack Foley, the host of Cover to Cover on KPFA 94.1 FM, Berkeley, CA, will broadcast on September 6 at 3:00 to 3:30 p.m. part one of his interview with the poet/translator whose new book, Puerta del Sol (Bilingual Press), moves between the cities of San Francisco and Madrid and between the languages of English and Spanish. Part two will air September 13. The show is available in podcast, as well. Go to KPFA’s website for more information.

◙ WRITER VIRAMONTES TO RECEIVE LUIS LEAL LITERATURE AWARD

SANTA BARBARA, Calif., Aug. 14 -- The University of California at Santa Barbara issued the following press release:

Helena Maria Viramontes, a writer and professor of English at Cornell University, is the recipient of this year's Luis Leal Award for Distinction in Chicano/Latino Literature, given annually by the University of California, Santa Barbara, the Santa Barbara Book & Author Festival and Santa Barbara City College.

Considered one of the country's premier Latina writers, Viramontes is the author of "The Moths and Other Stories" and "Under the Feet of Jesus," a novel about a migrant farming family, which is now in its fourteenth printing. Her new novel, "Their Dogs Came With Them," will be published in 2007.

She is the recipient of numerous awards and honors, including the John Dos Passos Award for Literature. Her short stories and essays have been widely anthologized and her writings have been adopted for classroom use and university study.

With Maria Herrera Sobek, associate vice chancellor for diversity, equity, and academic policy at UC Santa Barbara, Viramontes is co editor of two collections: "Chicana (W)rites: On Word and Film" and "Chicana Creativity and Criticism."

"Viramontes is one of the most innovative and poetic of contemporary Latino writers in the United States, and one whose work deserves even greater recognition," says Mario Garcia, professor of Chicano studies and history at UCSB, who is the organizer of the annual Leal Award.

The award is named after Luis Leal, professor of Chicana/Chicano Studies at UCSB, who is internationally recognized as one of the leading scholars of Chicano and Latino literature. He will celebrate his 99th birthday this year....

Previous recipients of the Leal Award include Oscar Hijuelos, Rudolfo Anaya, and Denise Chavez.

All done. So, until next Monday, enjoy the intervening posts from my compadres y comadre at La Bloga. ¡Lea un libro!

¿Ya Nadie Lee?

Manuel Ramos

In this post:

Does Anyone Read Anymore?
Taibo and Marcos
Alexander Street Press
Lucha Corpi
I Guess I Sort Of Brought Some Mexican-American Culture Into My Soul
Ask A Mexican

DOES ANYONE READ ANYMORE?
The question(s) of the day, debated in classrooms, bookstores, libraries, and blogs.

How many people do you know who actually read books on a regular basis? When was the last time you or someone close to you read a book just to read it, not because it was a bestseller, not because you are a book reviewer or a literary blogger, or a writer? And speaking of writers, how many writers do serious reading these days? How many young people do you know who read because they want to, not because they have a class assignment or are taking a test? Are we a nation of illiterates?

I just ask the questions.

TAIBO AND MARCOS
The amazing collaboration between Paco Ignacio Taibo and Subcomandante Marcos that we reported on when we were just a baby blog, along with just about every other Latino media outlet in the world, produced a novel that will soon (October) be available in English from Akashic Books. Here is the publisher's propaganda about a book that I am sure is a must read for many.

The Uncomfortable Dead
(What's Missing is Missing)
A Novel of Four Hands by
Paco Ignacio Taibo II and Subcomandante Marcos
In alternating chapters, Zapatista leader Subcomandante Marcos and the consistently excellent Paco Ignacio Taibo II create an uproarious murder mystery with two intersecting storylines. The chapters written by the famously masked Marcos originate in the mountains of Chiapas, Mexico. There, the fictional "Subcomandante Marcos" assigns Elias Contreras--an odd but charming mountain man--to travel to Mexico City in search of an elusive and hideous murderer named "Morales." The second story line, penned by Taibo, stars his famous series detective Hector Belascoaran Shayne. Hector guzzles Coca-Cola and smokes cigarettes furiously amidst his philosophical and always charming approach to investigating crimes--in this case, the search for his own "Morales."

The two stories collide absurdly and dramatically in the urban sprawl of Mexico City. The ugly history of the city's political violence rears its head, and both detectives find themselves in an unpredictable dance of death with forces at once criminal, historical, and political. Readers expecting political heavy-handedness will be disarmed by the humility and playful self-mocking that runs throughout the book.

Subcomandante Marcos is a spokesperson and strategist for the Zapatistas, an indigenous insurgency movement based in Mexico. He first joined the guerrilla group which was to become the Zapatistas in the early 1980s. Marcos is author of several books translated into English, including the award-winning children's book Story of the Colors (Cinco Puntos) and Our Word Is Our Weapon (Seven Stories Press).

Paco Ignacio Taibo II was born in Gijon, Spain and has lived in Mexico since 1958. He is the author of numerous works of fiction and nonfiction, which have been published in many languages around the world, including a mystery series starring Mexican Private Investigator Hector Belascoaran Shayne (a protagonist in this book as well). He is a professor of history at the Metropolitan University of Mexico City. He has won various literary prizes, including the National History Award from Mexico's National Institute of Anthropology and History.

ALEXANDER STREET PRESS LATINO LITERATURE
This announcement came across La Bloga's desk:

Alexander Street’s Latino Literature a “Top Five” resource -- Emerald Reference Reviews

Emerald’s Reference Reviews has just announced the Top Five Electronic Reference Sources of 2005. Latino Literature from Alexander Street Press was on the Top Five list. The awards were announced by Tony Chalcraft, Editor of Reference Reviews.

“We have worked hard to bring librarians a great deal of content that cannot be found anywhere else on the Web,” said Isabel Lacerda, editor of Latino Literature. “Most of the content is in copyright, and the remainder is unique, rare, or out of print for a long time. It’s been a great honor to work with these authors and archives, and the award is going to mean a lot to all of them—as well as to Alexander Street Press and all our customers who use Latino Literature.”

Latino Literature is part of Alexander Street’s cluster of products in Latino and Latin American history and literature. It’s also part of Alexander Street’s drama cluster, because it includes hundreds of plays along with the poetry and prose of the Latino writers.

The authors are Mexican, Puerto Rican, Cuban, Central American, and South American and includes names such as Maria Amparo Ruiz de Burton, Maria Cristina Mena, Josefina Niggli, Daniel Venegas, Rudolfo Anaya, Edwidge Danticat, Oscar Hijuelos, Lynne Alvarez, Lucha Corpi, Luis Valdez, Cherrie Moraga, Carlos Morton, Alurista, Virgil Suarez, Judith Ortiz Cofer, Ivan Acosta, Oscar Zeta Acosta, Rolando Hinojosa, Tato Laviera, and hundreds of others. As of September 2006, the database will include more than 120,000 pages.

Alexander Street Press, L.L.C., is an academic publisher of online databases, including collections in, history, literature, streaming music, music reference, women’s studies, black studies, sociology, psychology, ethnic and diversity studies, religion, social theory, popular culture, film studies, theatre videos, the arts, and other areas. Alexander Street databases have won numerous awards, and the company is known for its unique and powerful organizing and indexing methods. Alexander Street Press is located in Alexandria, Virginia.

###

Editors: For additional information on Alexander Street Press and its products, please contact Eileen Lawrence, vice president of sales and marketing, 800-889-5937 ext. 211 or lawrence@alexanderstreet.com. Or visit http://alexanderstreet.com/.

LUCHA CORPI
Lucha's situation has improved but she and her family are going through dark times. So much at once - including a death in the immediate family, the life-threatening illness of her husband, and a fire that destroyed her computer and manuscripts and required a move to another house. But Lucha is one strong spirit. Here's part of a message she sent: "I have no idea when I'll get back to my writing. I have probably no more than four chapters to finish the new novel. Thank goodness I made a hard copy of the ms ... . I still have it. Perhaps now that we're moving to a house I'll be able to finish the first draft. I need to write. Only then will the world make sense again."

Those of you who pray, give blessings, or otherwise care for people in your hearts, remember Lucha and her family.

I GUESS I SORT OF BROUGHT SOME MEXICAN-AMERICAN CULTURE INTO MY SOUL
There is a very hip interview with Irwin Tang online at the San Antonio Current -- Skip The Fortune Cookies, Please, written by Elaine Woolf. Tang makes an appearance 4:00 PM, August 26 at the Borders Alamo Quarry, 255 E. Basse in San Anto. So what, you may ask. Tang is the guy who wrote a commentary about Shaquille O’Neal’s racist taunting of the Houston Rockets’ Chinese center Yao Ming. He also has published a book entitled How I Became a Black Man and Other Metamorphoses, a short-story collection based on growing up in College Station, TX. Blogger readers may find Tang interesting because of comments like the following, which I lifted from the interview:

How do you answer that question: How can Shaq be racist if he’s African-American? Well, it’s kind of like asking, if I get spat in the face, does that mean I’m unable to spit on someone else’s face? Of course I’m able to. The title of my opinion piece was “Tell Shaq to Come Down to Chinatown,” and it’s like, yeah, me walking through Texas A&M University, the Corps might run by chanting something about dropping napalm on little Vietnamese kids or something like that — which they’ve done before — but if one of those Corps guys comes down to Chinatown in Oakland and starts mouthing off, he might end up with a knife in the back. It just depends on the situation, who’s got the power. So that’s the way I see it: Everyone has power. To say that some people can’t be racist is almost like saying that some people can’t have power, and that I think is kind of dehumanizing.

Tangentially related to that, let’s talk about your time working for Cesar Chavez. What were some of the lessons you learned? I guess the main lesson I learned being an activist on the Left wasn’t all about holding hands and singing “Kum By Ya” and “We Shall Overcome.” There was just some really hardball work that was done and there were a lot of people in the union movement that were really hardnosed activists. They weren’t gonna take any crap and there was a lot of hardnosed bargaining and negotiating with growers and boycotts and just trying to threaten as much economic damage as possible against those who wouldn’t respect the unions. So basically what I learned was a more hardnosed form of progressive activism from working with Chavez. And the main other thing was I really grew close to the Latino community. In a lot of ways my racial affinities growing up were affected by who picked on me, who defended me, who was half-and-half. Well, it tended to be like this: White kids tended to pick on me, although a few of them would stand up for me. Black kids tended to stand up for me, and Hispanic kids were sort of half-and-half. And in College Station there was either black or white; there was no sort of racial identity for [Hispanic kids] in my mind until I joined as an activist for the union and I felt like I was one of the Mexican-American activists. I guess I sort of brought some Mexican-American culture into my soul.

Visit Tang's website.


ASK A MEXICAN
Okay, I won't try to explain this. Read it for yourself. I will quote this tagline: "The Mexican can answer any and every question on his race, from why Mexicans stick the Virgin of Guadalupe everywhere to our obsession with dwarves and transvestites." A couple of places where you can find Gustavo Arellano's column are OC Weekly and Alibi.com.

Later.

From Barbershop to Prime Time (Is Morning Prime?)

Manuel Ramos
Here's a special flash --

LÍBRERÍA MARTÍNEZ
The Newsletter from one of the best-known bookstores in the Southern Cal area has this bit of news that may make you want to flip on the TV early Thursday morning:

"Set your TiVo, DVR or VCR for Thursday, August 24th between 7:00 AM and 9:00 AM because Dave Price - The Early Show weatherman and feature reporter - will profile Rueben Martinez and the genesis of Libreria Martinez. The Early Show airs nationwide on CBS (Channel 2, in Southern California). Producer, Erika Josephson and Mr. Price were in town from New York last week to film the piece. As you can imagine, Mr. Martinez gave the talented CBS News crew plenty to work with for the upcoming segment. His passion and enthusiasm had them jumping out of their seats, energized and looking for more. You do not want to miss this exciting and important segment, which allows Mr. Martinez to share his story and mission of the Libreria Martinez bookstores with the rest of the nation.

What: Rueben Martinez profile by Dave Price
Where: CBS (Channel 2) The Early Show
When: Thursday, August 24, 2006: Between 7:00 AM and 9:00 AM
Special thanks to CBS News, Dave Price, Erika Josephson, Max Stacy and crew. For more information about The Early Show click on the following link.
CBS The Early Show"

It's worth pointing out that Martínez started as a barber who sold books in his shop, often giving them away, and recently was honored as a recipient of a MacArthur Foundation Fellowship because of his passionate and productive community service. He usually has cool art on hand. I picked up a nicely framed print of Mike's Pool Hall by Emigdio Vasquez in Rueben's shop a few years ago and those pool-hustling, sharp-dressed vatos are peering over my shoulder as I write this.

Later (Friday, actually).

LAS CRUCEN'S HEARTFELT MEMOIR FINDS COMFORT IN THE CULTURE

Book Review by Daniel Olivas

In the very first sentence of her new memoir, A Taco Testimony: Meditations on Family, Food and Culture (Rio Nuevo, paperback $16.95), Denise Chávez warns readers:

"This is not a sweet little book about tacos; it remembers the fights that began at the kitchen table, spilled into the dining room, then moved quickly into the living room and continued into the bedroom with the sudden slam of a door that led to the hushed sound of someone crying behind that door."

But the title of this moving and engrossing "memoir of food" also gives a clue to the story Chávez is about to tell. Chávez does, indeed, offer testimony about growing up in a family dealing with alcoholism as well as her own battles with depression and drugs. But this is far from being a gloomy book. In the end, Chávez inspires and cajoles the reader into learning how to appreciate family, friends, literature and good food.

Of course, the recurring theme of Chávez's memoir is the taco. Reappearing throughout this engaging book are fond memories, recipes, poems and interesting facts related to the taco. For Chávez, it goes beyond delicious nourishment. It symbolizes order and comfort in a household that suffered from the alcoholic abuses of her father, Epifanio, a "brilliant lawyer" who "had no practical living skill" and drank the family into financial jeopardy.

In their neat Las Cruces home, Chávez's mother, Delfina, tried mightily to maintain appearances in her marriage to this handsome and seemingly upright man. But they "lived a family lie." To the outside world, her father was a "successful small-town lawyer" married to an "untroubled beautiful mother from an even smaller town called El Povo, The Dust."

Delfina met Epifanio as a widow with a child. He was supposed to be her salvation, her way of making a home that was torn apart by the untimely death of her first husband. Sadly, Epifanio failed in that regard. They eventually divorced, though Epifanio would sometimes stay overnight during important holidays, his birthday being the most important of all.

In the same way her mother's tacos helped bring some warmth and stability to their home, Chávez admits that this special food came to her rescue while she attended graduate school. Far from home, she suffered from depression, smoked marijuana constantly, skipped meals and began to unravel. Chávez recounts one night when she forced herself to make tacos, all by herself with her family many miles away, to pull herself out of a downward spiral. She would not sleep until she finished cooking. Chávez succeeded in this curative act and unabashedly asserts: "Tacos can save your life."

She has forgiven her father and grown stronger in the process. Now she can look back with great fondness on the good things her family offered: love (though imperfect), a rich culture, education and wonderful, healing food.

Chávez is an engaging writer who has a well-honed talent for describing in intimate detail everything from human foibles to mouthwatering Mexican delicacies. She also confronts life in all its beautiful and painful permutations. This is a testimony well-worth reading. And it wouldn't hurt to have a taco or two nearby once your mouth starts to water.

[This review first appeared in the El Paso Times.]

Pedazos

Manuel Ramos

NEW FOR FALL
The Arte Público Fall Trade Catalog has several titles worth picking up. One that caught my eye is Enriqueta Vasquez and the Chicano Movement: Writings from El Grito del Norte, edited by Lorena Oropeza and Dionne Espinoza, with a Foreword by John Nichols. The catalog says: "Highlighting the involvement of women in the Chicano Movement, this anthology combines for the first time in one volume the columns written by Enriqueta Vasquez from 1968-1972 for the path-breaking Chicano newspaper, El Grito del Norte. Enriqueta Vasquez’s columns written during the peak of the civil rights movement provided a platform for her fierce but hopeful voice of protest. In her column, entitled ¡Despierten Hermanos! [Awaken, Brothers and Sisters!], she used both anger and humor in her efforts to stir her fellow Chicanos to action. Drawing upon her own experiences as a Chicana, she wrote about such issues as racism, sexism, imperialism, and poverty, issues that remain pressing today." Look for this book in November.

In October, Arte Público will release Tyrone's Betrayal, the seventh novel in Gloria Velásquez's Roosevelt High School series, an "engaging novel for young adults [that] tackles the problem of absentee fathers in the African-American community."

WORDS & MUSIC, A LITERARY FEAST IN NEW ORLEANS
This festival, postponed last year because of Katrina, has published its schedule, which you can find here. The festival takes place November 1 - 6 and it has a definite Chicano thing going on. Announced participants include Rolando Hinojosa, Luis Rodríguez, Ana Castillo, Mary Helen Lagasse, José Cuellar (Dr. Loco), the Iguanas, and yours truly talking about, of all things, La Bloga. There also will be a Día de los Muertos exhibit. You will hear more about this in the coming months but those of you into the literature (and music) and with some accrued annual leave might start thinking about the Crescent City in November.

Looking for some good summer reading that includes a couple of authors we have mentioned recently?

WORDS WITHOUT BORDERS: THE ONLINE MAGAZINE FOR INTERNATIONAL LITERATURE
presents its second noir issue--Tempers and Temperatures Rise (August). You can find this nifty mag here. The latest issue has this intro:

In the murderous summer heat—when, to quote Raymond Chandler, "Meek little wives feel the edge of the carving knife and study their husbands' necks"—we invite you to chill with the icy killers, con men, and cops of our second noir issue. Giampiero Rigosi's hustlers board the "Night Bus" in Bologna, and Leonardo Padura's burned-out Cuban policeman confronts Hurricane Felix and his own tropical depression in "Havana Black." Tonino Benacquista's Parisian gallery worker wrestles modern art and a modern art thief in "Framed," Gianrico Carofiglio's weary Italan lawyer tries to stop smoking and go straight in "A Walk in the Dark," and Marek Krajewski's laconic inspector finds corpses in walls and ghosts everywhere in "End of the World in Breslau." Jakob Arjouni's disgraced gangster plots his heroic redemption in the antic "Black Story," while Santiago Paez's Ecuadorian cops investigate a suicide who's literally gone to pieces. Let tempers and temperatures rise: As Chandler noted, "Anything can happen."

CÉSAR CHÁVEZ PEACE JAM 2006 AT CÉSAR CHÁVEZ PARK
August 26, 2006 11:00am – 6:00pm The flyer says:

The César Chávez Peace and Justice Committee of Denver (CCPJC) will kick off the first annual César Chávez Peace Jam 2006, at César Chávez Park (41st and Tennyson) on Saturday, August 26, 2006, from 11:00 am to 6:00 pm. Peace Jam 2006 is a fundraiser concert to support CCPJC’s annual César Chávez Day Celebration. There is a minimum $5 suggested donation.

Join us for a day in the park filled with the unique sounds of several of Colorado’s own local up and coming bands. Peace Jam 2006 will feature the talents of Brown Obsidian, Johnny Rodriguez y Los Diamantes, Jon Romero and the Cuervo Nation, Los Hermanos, RUMBA, The Denver Slam Team, DJ Aztlan, and many more! Community members will also be able to enjoy great food and drinks from local restaurants, goods from featured vendors and information provided by non-profit organizations throughout Colorado.

LUCHA CORPI
The author of Eulogy For A Brown Angel, Crimson Moon, Black Widow's Wardrobe and several other novels and works of poetry is going through a very rough time. Those of us who know Lucha are sending her positive thoughts, lighting candles, doing whatever we can. We may have more about her situation in upcoming posts on La Bloga.

Sorry about the lack of graphics (book covers, photos, logos) - something I think a blog should have, in addition to good content, of course. But the anti-image demonio that has plagued me for months is still at it - I was lucky to get one graphic inserted in this post.

Later.

A Chicano viaje: San Anto to Denver, 2006

(final installment)

"Don't worry about the thunder; it never turns into anything," my family had assured me, "we're in a drought." Soon enough, flashes of lightning turned into a thunderstorm dumping a torrent of rain on us marooned out in the tool shed. In the next 45 min. my dog Manchas got over his fear of 4th of July firecrackers; it was replaced by a deathly fear of storms. Plus, Manchas had been homesick for two days, and I'd stopped drinking beer yesterday. That's how I knew it was time to head home.

Loaded up with gas, ice and Gatorade, after San Angelo I take a more westerly route past the mesas with the wind turbines and this time only see them in the distance. I regret that 'cause me and the other hunter-gatherer wanted to find a way to get up close to them. Next time.

It seems hotter than on our way down, though I think that's an illusion since I at least should be more acclimated after almost a week of San Anto's heat. Of course, I had a cold beer in my hand most of my time there to cool me off, but still--.

Everywhere in central, and on up into the panhandle of Texas, church signs stand roadside, indicating this part of the country helped give the world the Iraq war so more of the world could hate us even more. As if we needed that.

One of the old style Jesus-radio stations is on and for some stupid reason I don't turn the dial. A caller explains to the DJ how she's worried about her friend's soul 'cause he doesn't believe in Jesus and has all these terminal illnesses. I can't write down his exact words 'cause I'm driving, but basically the DJ explains the way religion works is that as long as the caller believes, that will be enough to save her friend. I'm not believing the shit she's swallowing. The DJ's giving away Get-Out-of-Hell-Free cards. In this Texas, just make sure you've got at least one ultra-religious friend, and your soul and cancers will be taken care of.

It reminds me of the title of Lalo Delgado's poem, Stupid America. It's one thing to belong to a church, it's a whole 'nother thing to believe DJs like this and elect Presidents like George Dubbya. But I know they've been doing things like that in this part of the country for over 150 years. Some Americans are so pinche ignorant. The Texas tourist slogan brags, "It's like a whole other country." Planet, more like.

Somewhere after Big Spring I pass a road sign with the Greek letter lambda on it. I instantly recognize it, being educated and not from this part of the country, but I can't understand its meaning. Is it some local county lore, a secret society of Jesus-believers and Bush-electors? It gives me the creeps, I start sweating even more and take it up to 65. Maybe the heat's getting to me.

As we near Lubbock there's another sign: "Lubbock police now hiring." I didn't see a sign on my down, though it may have been there. And I don't understand it. In a town of over 200,000 there aren't enough people to fill the vacancies? Buddy Holly's birthplace ain't good enough to attract out-of-state wannabe sheriffs? Why? And does the town think that sign's gonna attract me or that qualified applicants regularly travel this route?

I see yellow ribbons attached to fences and remember I saw them earlier. I assumed they were for soldiers in Iraq, but that color's also for suicides. I find out later at least one Iraqi veteran from here committed suicide and that here in Farmland, suicide's "a growing response to the pressures of mounting debt, shrinking markets, and diminishing futures." Maybe Lubbock police can't take the stress of dealing with all that, who knows?

I pull into a motley gas station for fuel and drinks. A small American flag hangs neglectfully on the side, so faded and tattered that only a light blue background and white stars and the once-red stripes remain; the white stripes are gone, rotted away, like the country no longer stands for peace but can't totally bleach away the blood being shed in Iraq, on both sides.

By sunset I've found the perfect place to camp, at least according to the map: Buffalo Lake National Wildlife Refuge. I have visions of Manchas throwing himself in the water after he's chased and been chased by buffalo; and thousands of birds and maybe more of the butterflies that drowned San Anto with their bodies. I imagine me and the dog waking up in a wondrous semi-wilderness meant just for hunter/gatherer types.

The map indicates the Refuge is on a bypass that goes to Amarillo, but it doesn't show the fifty miles of county road to get there. Lucky us, it's not regular road. Yes, there's fence all through these grasslands. What's different is the grass isn't cut; it's the tallest prairie grass I've ever been in. We stop to watch it sway in the cooling wind under the headlights. It feels not like thousands of plants, but rather like a single, gigantic creature, biding its dormancy, content to wait for us to move on. Only one car passes us that night.

The map also doesn't tell us it's almost impossible to see signs directing you to the Refuge. I see the first turn only because I have the brights on and just barely make out a right-turn arrow. The second turn-sign is even more off the road, and I'm lucky to notice it.

The road winds down into a fifty-foot canyon. It's lush here, not like above; several mule deer cross our path or romp over the ineffective fences. Maybe a large owl swoops past, but I'm not certain. I want to stop here where it's quiet, totally dark, sunk below the anti-hunter/gather society above, but it's so dark, it's almost another place, not Texas.

At last--the Refuge info booth, displaying a map, brochures, and a sign indicating the gate won't open until 8am. There's a streetlamp a quarter mile away, not close enough to outshine the thousand stars above us.

Manchas and I sit on the truck gate. The wind's wonderful, the solitude might have made Abbey weep, even though Amarillo's only about thirty miles away; may as well be a thousand, its lights are so dim. After I fail to spot even one falling meteor and Manchas has failed to discover even what one sound he's heard means, we climb into the cab to sleep 'cause the back's too full of rock and agave.

He wakes me at 3:30 in the morning by plopping all 75 lbs. of himself on my lap, concentrating his attention in such a way that I think a mule deer or serial killer must have climbed on the hood. I wait for his decision about which it is as he stares intensely westward. I try to shift his weight off, but he won't budge.

It's a storm, another electrical one, and it's too late to drive anywhere, what with this super-frightened Lard-Butt-Dog on me, plus the storm's so huge, we can't outrun it, anyway.

The first flash of lightning covers half the sky and clouds and as its rumble dies out, every fox, coyote, and feral canine on the Refuge lets out one great howl, almost in harmony. Just one each. Not those lingering, stretched out howls, just a one-word howl. I don't know what the word is, but it doesn't matter; it's fokkin' great! Makes me shudder and twangs at the vestigial hunter in me.

I don't even mind the next 30 min. of rain pelting the roof, of hugging to comfort a squirming dog or his sitting on me, depending on how you look at it. The storm passes, and I fall asleep.

We get up at 7:30, and I'm the one who's tired. A couple of Park Rangers pass us on their way to work, looking and wondering what we're up to. We smile.

The informational booth explains: "The buffalo have vanished. The lake has dried." (Turns out the country that spends $4.5 billion a month to turn Iraq into Death Valley couldn't afford to fix the Buffalo Lake dam, no doubt bankrupting plenty of farmers.) So, two-fifths of the Buffalo Lake National Wildlife Refuge's name sounds like false advertising, intended to lure map-reading hunter-gatherers. Fortunately, I know there is at least wildlife, from last night.

The already hot sun rises higher, and we're on an overlook from which I can see the winding canyon road that brought us here. There's marshy land to the south, no doubt filled with birds that haven't reached their final destination, just like us.

I decide that without buffalo for Manchas to chase or maybe enough water for him to dunk, we'd best move on. A quarter of a mile later we pass a dozen buffalo penned in an acre of fence. I don't have the heart to point them out to Manchas, nor to disturb their sad incarceration.

Before noon we've only got memories of the cooled Refugee, are sweating like George Dubbya and need a break, so we pull off on some exit with a state park 2 miles off. A small faded camper's parked alongside the entrance booth, and a hawk or buzzard circles overhead. I wonder if he's waiting for the emaciated, old, uniformed woman who comes to the truck.

"I'm just looking for a spot for my dog to run around for a bit; we're headed to Denver. We weren't going to camp or anything."

She points. "You can let him run around there, and I won't charge you."

It's a vacant lot with plenty of anthills (are they everywhere?). I break down and pay her the $2 fee. "You got a river here where the dog can get himself wet?"

She points. "There is a river over there," emphasizing as if I might be blind. "Follow the road along the trees. If you let the dog loose, watch out for rattlers."

I head off, but no matter where I drive, I can't find a spot close to the river. We give up, park, and trek across landscape harsher than any Western you ever saw. There's prickly pear--big, little, dried, dead, barely green, wide, broken and spread--everywhere. The nopal growing in my front yard looks healthier.

Manchas wants to run loose to chase a scrawny coyote running through the scrawnier bush, but he's staying leashed 'cause I don’t relish pulling cactus needles from his paws nor sucking rattler venom from his rump, either.

I'm betting the water will be hot when we reach it, but better than nothing. That's about what we find: I've seen Denver chuckholes with more water in 'em than what's within these banks. This "river" is not moving 'cause there's not enough of it to work up the energy to seek its own level, much less a lower one. I can't let Manchas go in 'cause I'm sure he'll catch something malignant just from the stagnancy.

We make it back through the nopal maze to the truck to eat supper after our hearty swim. I saved the potted meat for an emergency, but the scenery seems a perfect match for such a meal. We kill off the cheddar and crackers, along with Manchas gorging on his primo packaged food, mixed with some dry. I can't manage more than half my can. The rest I leave for the coyote, hoping it won't do him as much harm as it probably does me.

On our way out we see more birds circling--probably hawks--and an anorexic, elongated jackrabbit dashes across the road. Where does he get the strength in this heat? I'm amazed the water from the "river" can keep so much alive. I feel like stopping to ask the woman for my money back, but I don't.

As we head toward New Mexico, we pass three monstrous trucks heading the opposite way, hauling three huge drainage pipes, 12, maybe 15 ft. in diameter. I know where they're not going, but where out here can they be used? They seem like a delusional optimist's last, hopeless gesture.

I see another road sign, almost like the lambda sign, and realize it was no secret society; it just indicates the shape of the road we're approaching. Must have been the heat.

Road construction is now in full swing wherever the fines-doubled signs are out, like they do work on Wednesdays, even if not on Mondays, like when we came down. It makes for a longer exit from Texas. Five vintage corvettes pass us, nostalgia on wheels, shining and only doing 50. Seems like years since we've been gone. I let out a sigh, maybe of relief, as we cross the border.

It's not as hot when we drive through Pueblo, Colo. and Colorado Springs, but it feels hotter because of the hour and downtown highway construction similar to Denver trying to make room for too many cars of too many people, only on a smaller scale. This future's not bright here either.

As we cross the last rise before I-25 descends into Castle Rock and Denver, a small thunderstorm engulfs the late afternoon traffic. This time the dog doesn't get upset 'cause he's almost home, and the gatherer's managed to bring me, the hunter, back safely.

© Rudy Ch. Garcia 2006