BORDER CROSSING

The poignant story of Manz, a 15-year-old boy trying to cope with a dysfunctional relationship with his alcoholic mother and the humming noises, whispering voices and scary visions that only he perceives. Through the teenager’s first-person narration, Anderson traces the isolated landscape of Rockhill, a very small town in Texas, and reveals the distressing stories behind the apparent simplicity of its inhabitants’ lives. Manz is the son of an undocumented Mexican “Loco” who died in a car accident and a white girl, Delores, who in defiance of her parents gave birth to him at the age of 16. Disillusionment, domestic violence, informants, Border Patrol agents and unsolved crimes are the pieces that form the puzzle of his Anglo community. A strong sense of family, a mystic love for the land and the fear of deportation are the sentiments that he reads in the mysterious people of triangular eyes and dark skin, the Mexican Americans. A sad and thought-provoking exploration of mental illness. (Fiction. YA)