A fresh translation of this classic of 20th-century Mexican literature, ready for a new audience to savor.
This coming-of-age story, originally published in 1981, explores the intensity of childhood passion even as it mourns the passing of a version of Mexico City subsumed by the tidal wave of consumer-based globalism.
Carlos is a child of the Mexican middle class, which is made up of “typical wannabes,” according to his brutish older brother, Héctor. During the post–World War II presidency of Miguel Alemán, Carlos’ Mexico City is poised on the dividing line between a way of living informed by traditional culture and the wave of industrialization, importation, and consumer marketing designed to “whiten the taste of the Mexicans.” Carlos’ father owns a failing soap factory which is being outcompeted by North American detergent brands, and his mother “despises anyone who [isn’t] from Jalisco,” which would seem to include Carlos and his younger sister, the only two of her five children not born in Guadalajara. Carlos takes a more egalitarian view of the national and ethnic identities of the people who surround him—whether it is his classmate Jim, who was born in San Francisco and speaks both English and Spanish with no identifying accent; Toru, who is Japanese and spent his early childhood in an internment camp; or scholarship student Rosales, who is from one of the worst slums in the city, Carlos believes that “nobody chooses how they’re born” and manages to float fairly seamlessly among the playground tribes. When Carlos meets Jim’s mother—the beautiful Mariana, rumored mistress of a high-ranking member of Alemán’s inner circle—his aimless drifting develops sudden purpose. In spite of his young age, Carlos falls deeply in love with Mariana. As his passion becomes obsessive, Carlos goes out of his way to gather information about Mariana from her son, to find excuses to stop by Jim’s house after school, and, finally, to sneak out of school in order to confess his love. The subsequent overreaction to Carlos’ actions by his parents, school officials, psychologists, and friends turns the order of Carlos’ life upside down, leading in a circuitous way to the family’s eventual departure from Mexico to a new life as immigrants in America. A tender and unequivocal exploration of the strength of a child’s passion, Pacheco’s work treats the passing of the Mexico City of his youth with the same wistful longing as he does Carlos' love, which, being secret and silent, is the most hopeless type of love and thus also the saddest.
A fresh translation of this classic of 20th-century Mexican literature, ready for a new audience to savor.Pub Date: June 1, 2021
ISBN: 978-0-8112-3095-7
Page Count: 54
Publisher: New Directions
Review Posted Online: March 30, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 15, 2021
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.
A falsely accused Black man goes into hiding in this masterful novella by Wright (1908-1960), finally published in full.
Written in 1941 and '42, between Wright’s classics Native Son and Black Boy, this short novel concerns Fred Daniels, a modest laborer who’s arrested by police officers and bullied into signing a false confession that he killed the residents of a house near where he was working. In a brief unsupervised moment, he escapes through a manhole and goes into hiding in a sewer. A series of allegorical, surrealistic set pieces ensues as Fred explores the nether reaches of a church, a real estate firm, and a jewelry store. Each stop is an opportunity for Wright to explore themes of hope, greed, and exploitation; the real estate firm, Wright notes, “collected hundreds of thousands of dollars in rent from poor colored folks.” But Fred’s deepening existential crisis and growing distance from society keep the scenes from feeling like potted commentaries. As he wallpapers his underground warren with cash, mocking and invalidating the currency, he registers a surrealistic but engrossing protest against divisive social norms. The novel, rejected by Wright’s publisher, has only appeared as a substantially truncated short story until now, without the opening setup and with a different ending. Wright's take on racial injustice seems to have unsettled his publisher: A note reveals that an editor found reading about Fred’s treatment by the police “unbearable.” That may explain why Wright, in an essay included here, says its focus on race is “rather muted,” emphasizing broader existential themes. Regardless, as an afterword by Wright’s grandson Malcolm attests, the story now serves as an allegory both of Wright (he moved to France, an “exile beyond the reach of Jim Crow and American bigotry”) and American life. Today, it resonates deeply as a story about race and the struggle to envision a different, better world.
A welcome literary resurrection that deserves a place alongside Wright’s best-known work.Pub Date: April 20, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-59853-676-8
Page Count: 240
Publisher: Library of America
Review Posted Online: March 16, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: April 1, 2021
BOOK TO SCREEN
Uneven but fitfully amusing.
Betrayed by her husband, a severely depressed young woman gets drawn into the over-the-top festivities at a lavish wedding.
Phoebe Stone, who teaches English literature at a St. Louis college, is plotting her own demise. Her husband, Matt, has left her for another woman, and Phoebe is taking it hard. Indeed, she's determined just where and how she will end it all: at an oceanfront hotel in Newport, where she will lie on a king-sized canopy bed and take a bottle of her cat’s painkillers. At the hotel, Phoebe meets bride-to-be Lila, a headstrong rich girl presiding over her own extravagant six-day wedding celebration. Lila thought she had booked every room in the hotel, and learning of Phoebe's suicidal intentions, she forbids this stray guest from disrupting the nuptials: “No. You definitely can’t kill yourself. This is my wedding week.” After the punchy opening, a grim flashback to the meltdown of Phoebe's marriage temporarily darkens the mood, but things pick up when spoiled Lila interrupts Phoebe's preparations and sweeps her up in the wedding juggernaut. The slide from earnest drama to broad farce is somewhat jarring, but from this point on, Espach crafts an enjoyable—if overstuffed—comedy of manners. When the original maid of honor drops out, Phoebe is persuaded, against her better judgment, to take her place. There’s some fun to be had here: The wedding party—including groom-to-be Gary, a widower, and his 11-year-old daughter—takes surfing lessons; the women in the group have a session with a Sex Woman. But it all goes on too long, and the humor can seem forced, reaching a low point when someone has sex with the vintage wedding car (you don’t want to know the details). Later, when two characters have a meet-cute in a hot tub, readers will guess exactly how the marriage plot resolves.
Uneven but fitfully amusing.Pub Date: July 30, 2024
ISBN: 9781250899576
Page Count: 384
Publisher: Henry Holt
Review Posted Online: Sept. 13, 2024
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