¡El día de los muertos!

Happy El día de los muertos!

 

Isn’t my little brother cute? This was taken at the St. Marks-in-the-Bowery Church last night/Halloween. And is that a full moon I see out there (at 5PM) over a quickly darkening Gotham? Hmm, mischief indeed. So, before I honor Mexican and Mexican-American/Chicano literature for this post, some quick news. A month full of readings (readings galore) has come to an end. And although I enjoyed every single one of them, they took me away from my main joy—which is hiding and working on my next “thing.” So that’s what I’ll be doing for the rest of the year, in addition to reading lots of books for the Publishing Triangle—who have asked me to be a judge for the 2010 awards, in the gay and lesbian non-fiction categories. What an honor!

PANIC! at the library (la segunda parte) will take place at the Mott Haven Public Library on Saturday, November 7^th, 2:15PM, and will feature Cristina Izaguirre, Charles Rice-González, Karen Jaime, and me, your host. This reading will wrap up the blitz! November 25^th will be the year’s finale for PANIC!, which takes December off. November readers for DREAM PANIC! will include the (my) lovely John Williams, Chadwick Moore, Vincent Bernard, Tom Cardamone and perhaps one more reader (confirmed list will post on the 15^th). The readers have been asked to read stories and poetry that feature dream sequences or similar aspects of the subconscious…

Okay…los libros…

 

 

 

Esperanza’s Box of Saints (Simon and Schuster, 1999)

by María Amparo Escandón

One of the fun things about reviewing books isn’t always getting your claws on the latest hot title, but finding something you somehow missed and playing a nice game of catch-up with it. My gym has a lender’s library and it’s a habit of mine to peruse it for random treasures. Esperanza’s Box of Saints is one such find. By page twenty or so I wondered why I was even reading it, but by the time I got to the middle I could not put it down.

So, small town in Mexico…

Esperanza is a woman plagued by tragedy and loss. Her father drowned when the local river flooded, her husband died in a nasty bus crash, and her daughter was taken to a hospital for a simple procedure and did not make it out alive. Esperanza becomes convinced that the doctor lied about her daughter’s death when she’s not permitted to view the body—but is presented with a coffin nailed shut. After she sneaks into the cemetery at night and digs down to the coffin (which she taps on and is convinced it is empty), she insists that her daughter Blanca is alive and has been kidnapped and enslaved in a brothel.

Esperanza leaves her small town of Tlacotalpan with her box of saint statues (which divine knowledge to her) and arrives at the whorehouses of Tijuana, where she begins her determined investigation and search—which takes her illegally across the border (in the trunk of a car owned by a lawyer who falls in love with her). Once in Los Angeles, however, Esperanza’s quest for Blanca nets her an unexpected prize—one which I cannot tell you, but something that helps to heal all of the wounds that make her such an adorable character. Think love.  

 

 

Memory Fever (University of Arizona Press, 1999)

by Ray Gonzalez

Ray Gonzalez is a sorcerer with words and imagery—and to the highest degree. He is an organic force of literary nature whose work sucks you in like quicksand that cannot be denied, defeated, or conquered. His very excellent Memory Fever is an essay collection that reads as a broken-up memoir, one decorated with compelling excursions into family history, the subcultures of youth, religion, poetry, and the absolute and endlessly inspiring reverence of the complex desert ecosystems and environments in which he’s chosen to call home. Most of the book takes place in and around El Paso, Texas—an epicenter of border politics, racism, and middle-class Americana aspirations.

Gonzalez begins with an ode to the deserts that once claimed the lives of conquistadors and weaves his personal history into that of the colonizing of the New World—he places himself (through his words) at the very beginning—before New Spain, Texas, and New Mexico even existed. Throughout these poetic time-capsules he is made to slaughter rattlesnakes, resides in a haunted house by the Rio Grande, buries hundreds of sparrow killed in an unusually powerful rainstorm, buys his first Beatles record, works at his father’s billiards hall, ponders the politics of celebrating Columbus Day, and makes his mystical forays into the worlds of psychedelic drugs and literature.

This collection will shine for anyone interested in the Chicano perspective that dominates the Latino experience in America (two-thirds, I believe). Not only does Gonzalez seduce with his words—you learn things in his spells. He knows much about desert creatures for instance, and the myriad trivia tidbits he releases make his work that more fascinating. His introduction to popular culture, via the Beatles, rang with a degree of innocence I simply do not observe anymore. His connection to our planet and all of the magic inherent to it breathes life into his words and hurls them over the line, from mere observation and identification (seeing/reading), to empowering them to open doors to your own memories and emotions (perceiving/feeling).

 

This was taken after the Halloween/Day of the Dead festival at El Museo Del Barrio, NYC. If you didn’t make it this year I recommend you try next year…fun for everyone…

See you sooooooon!

Charlie

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