A deeply meaningful collection that navigates important nuances of identity.
An anthology featuring Mexican American writers negotiating life in between cultures.
In an anthology that feels long overdue, Troncoso gathers 30 Mexican American writers to relate their accounts of what it means to be an American or, more often, what it means to not feel fully American. The anthology, which is divided into fiction, nonfiction, and poetry, contains mostly never-before-published works woven together by the common thread of “nepantla,” a Nahuatl word that means “mutual place” or the “in-between.” Alex Espinoza discusses being rejected due to his queerness, viewing his experience through the lens of machismo and alcoholism, two powerful forces that he notes often exist in tandem. In a short story, feminist poet ire’ne lara silva explores the concept of “crossing over” in Mexican culture, both literally (to the U.S.) and in the afterlife, while Octavio Quintanilla’s short poem conveys the fear of law enforcement that can often haunt immigrants long after they arrive in America as well as the constant threat of deportation. The liminal spaces in which these moving, sometimes heart-wrenching stories take place range from the geographical to the metaphysical. Often, the literal borders erected to keep out Mexican migrants become metaphors for a deeper struggle to find the meanings of us and them. Many of the writers express a frustration at being either “too Mexican” or “not Mexican enough." The rejection from both sides foments a desire to belong to something uniquely apart from either, giving birth to a diaspora that embraces the idea of existing in several worlds. “The either/or proposition that forces you to choose between your community and, say, your country has never been true,” Troncoso writes in the introduction. “The very skills we learn to cross borders within ourselves help us to cross borders toward others outside our community.” Other contributors include Sandra Cisneros, Reyna Grande, Francisco Cantú, and Stephanie Elizondo Griest.
A deeply meaningful collection that navigates important nuances of identity.Pub Date: April 2, 2021
ISBN: 978-1-62349-963-1
Page Count: 262
Publisher: Texas A&M Univ.
Review Posted Online: Feb. 9, 2021
Kirkus Reviews Issue: March 1, 2021
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
BOOK REVIEW
PERSPECTIVES
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.
The veteran actor, comedian, and banjo player teams up with the acclaimed illustrator to create a unique book of cartoons that communicates their personalities.
Martin, also a prolific author, has always been intrigued by the cartoons strewn throughout the pages of the New Yorker. So when he was presented with the opportunity to work with Bliss, who has been a staff cartoonist at the magazine since 1997, he seized the moment. “The idea of a one-panel image with or without a caption mystified me,” he writes. “I felt like, yeah, sometimes I’m funny, but there are these other weird freaks who are actually funny.” Once the duo agreed to work together, they established their creative process, which consisted of working forward and backward: “Forwards was me conceiving of several cartoon images and captions, and Harry would select his favorites; backwards was Harry sending me sketched or fully drawn cartoons for dialogue or banners.” Sometimes, he writes, “the perfect joke occurs two seconds before deadline.” There are several cartoons depicting this method, including a humorous multipanel piece highlighting their first meeting called “They Meet,” in which Martin thinks to himself, “He’ll never be able to translate my delicate and finely honed droll notions.” In the next panel, Bliss thinks, “I’m sure he won’t understand that the comic art form is way more subtle than his blunt-force humor.” The team collaborated for a year and created 150 cartoons featuring an array of topics, “from dogs and cats to outer space and art museums.” A witty creation of a bovine family sitting down to a gourmet meal and one of Dumbo getting his comeuppance highlight the duo’s comedic talent. What also makes this project successful is the team’s keen understanding of human behavior as viewed through their unconventional comedic minds.
A virtuoso performance and an ode to an undervalued medium created by two talented artists.Pub Date: Nov. 17, 2020
ISBN: 978-1-250-26289-9
Page Count: 272
Publisher: Celadon Books
Review Posted Online: Aug. 30, 2020
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Sept. 15, 2020
PERSPECTIVES
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.
The legendary booze-addled metal rocker turned reality-TV star comes clean in his tell-all autobiography.
Although brought up in the bleak British factory town of Aston, John “Ozzy” Osbourne’s tragicomic rags-to-riches tale is somehow quintessentially American. It’s an epic dream/nightmare that takes him from Winson Green prison in 1966 to a presidential dinner with George W. Bush in 2004. Tracing his adult life from petty thief and slaughterhouse worker to rock star, Osbourne’s first-person slang-and-expletive-driven style comes off like he’s casually relating his story while knocking back pints at the pub. “What you read here,” he writes, “is what dribbled out of the jelly I call my brain when I asked it for my life story.” During the late 1960s his transformation from inept shoplifter to notorious Black Sabbath frontman was unlikely enough. In fact, the band got its first paying gigs by waiting outside concert venues hoping the regularly scheduled act wouldn’t show. After a few years, Osbourne and his bandmates were touring America and becoming millionaires from their riff-heavy doom music. As expected, with success came personal excess and inevitable alienation from the other members of the group. But as a solo performer, Osbourne’s predilection for guns, drink, drugs, near-death experiences, cruelty to animals and relieving himself in public soon became the stuff of legend. His most infamous exploits—biting the head off a bat and accidentally urinating on the Alamo—are addressed, but they seem tame compared to other dark moments of his checkered past: nearly killing his wife Sharon during an alcohol-induced blackout, waking up after a bender in the middle of a busy highway, burning down his backyard, etc. Osbourne is confessional to a fault, jeopardizing his demonic-rocker reputation with glib remarks about his love for Paul McCartney and Robin Williams. The most distinguishing feature of the book is the staggering chapter-by-chapter accumulation of drunken mishaps, bodily dysfunctions and drug-induced mayhem over a 40-plus-year career—a résumé of anti-social atrocities comparable to any of rock ’n’ roll’s most reckless outlaws.
An autobiography as toxic and addictive as any drug its author has ever ingested.Pub Date: Jan. 25, 2010
ISBN: 978-0-446-56989-7
Page Count: 320
Publisher: Grand Central Publishing
Review Posted Online: May 19, 2010
Kirkus Reviews Issue: Dec. 1, 2009
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