August 10, 2009
Poet Baca's blistering novel takes to task the treatment of Mexican migrant workers in the US. When a young Mexican couple, Casimiro and Nopal, cross the border in 1984, their new life begins promisingly: they find work on a Texas farm and build a stable home for their two sons, Lorenzo and Vito. But before the boys reach adulthood, Nopal is murdered and her killer escapes. The family struggles to go on, with Lorenzo eventually taking over his father's farm duties and settling into domestic bliss with Carmen, a college student studying migrant workers. Vito's restless spirit leads him to fight in amateur boxing matches and to everyone's surprise, he shows a tantalizing level of talent and considers a serious fighting career. But even as the brothers find their own measures of success, they are haunted by the injustice of Nopal's murder. Interspersed with Lorenzo and Vito's lives are glimpses of Casimiro's youth and even Nopal's thoughts from the world beyond. A general sense of social and political unrest permeates the story, often to the point of distraction. But the sheer passion that drives Baca's novel is undeniable.
September 1, 2009
Poet Baca found his way to writing in prison, as chronicled in his memoir, A Place to Stand (2001). In his volcanic first novel, he confronts the Mexican immigrant nightmare and the tragedies and ironies of life on the border within a mythic tale of two brothers, Lorenzo and Vito. Their father, Casimiro, flees Mexico burdened with a grim secret and rescues beautiful Nopal, who nearly dies on her harrowing journey north. The young lovers find sanctuary on an American chili farm, where Casimiro becomes a respected foreman and Nopal a revered singer. But neither love nor fame prevents her vicious murder, nor lessens her young sons grief. Lorenzo inherits his fathers work ethic and love for the land but harvests a crop riskier and more lucrative than chilies, while wild man Vito becomes a warrior, boxer, and folk hero. Bacas dialogue and pacing need lubrication, but nothing interferes with the intense drama, raging physicality, molten emotions, and righteous social indictment that make this such a tumultuous fable and powerful call for an end to the border war.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2009, American Library Association.)
November 1, 2009
After the mother of a Mexican American family is brutally murdered, the widowed father, Casimiro, is forced to raise sons Lorenzo and Vito by himself in what is portrayed as a hostile environment. Both sons are determined to fight the system: Vito literally through pugilism and Lorenzo less violently through social change. Their divergent lives meet at the end as together they avenge their mother's death. Lorenzo is abetted in his quest for reform by Carmen, a doctoral student researching the immigrant population, who falls in love with him. Though the time frame ranges from 1984 to the present, the narration eschews straight chronological order. The thoughts and internalized words of the characters are conveyed in italicized soliloquies that, while thematically relevant, slow up the action somewhat. Baca's first novel is an auspicious beginning for one who has already found success in poetry, memoirs, and short stories (e.g., "The Importance of a Piece of Paper"). VERDICT A well-written and at times lyrical saga told with understanding and compassion that will appeal mostly to readers within the Latino community. [See Prepub Alert, "LJ" 6/15/09.]Lawrence Olszewski, OCLC Lib., Dublin, OH
Copyright 2009 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.
August 15, 2009
Mexican-American brothers struggle against prejudice and adversity in this first novel from poet/memoirist Baca (The Importance of a Piece of Paper, 2004, etc.).
After their father Casimiro is felled by stroke in 2003, Lorenzo takes over the land Casimiro worked for its owner, Miller. Younger brother Vito, forced to leave the farm after beating up Miller's son for disparaging a Mexican woman, dons boxing gloves and becomes a championship fighter. Unbeknownst to Miller, Lorenzo grows more than chili peppers; his marijuana crop generates plenty of surplus cash, which he uses to improve conditions for the area's immigrant field workers. He falls for Carmen, a graduate student writing her thesis on the migrants, but is caught between the way of life made possible by his illicit trade and Carmen's insistence that they join with the workers to agitate for improved conditions. Meanwhile, Vito becomes a hero to the Chicano field hands by equating his fights with the struggle against Anglo injustice and oppression. The narrative skips back and forth in chronology, always circling around the murder of their mother Nopal when Lorenzo was five. We learn that 15-year-old Nopal fled Mexico for America in 1983, fought off a rapist, was rescued by Casimiro, had a singing career that led to her death; ethereal italicized passages suggest that her spirit still follows her sons. All lines eventually converge in a questionably executed and predictable dnouement that would work better with fuller character development. Baca's impulse to poetic reverie sacrifices clarity and accessibility for surreal, excessive description. Conversely, lack of specificity keeps the material about the plight of immigrant workers at the level of vague archetypes. The betrayal of one brother by the other, the fight in which their bid for land ownership is at stake, as well as the unlikely discovery of their mother's murderer are all rushed through in prose that never earns believability, empathy or a hold on the reader's attention.
A potentially interesting story sabotaged by lack of discipline.
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