First published 2000
John Phillip Santos sets out to understand why his grandfather took his own life in San Antonio, Texas, in 1939. The mystery drives him deep into his family's past and the broader story of Mexican immigration to America. Santos reconstructs his heritage through fragments of dreams, family stories, and Chicano myths. He encounters remarkable relatives like Madrina, who gained prophetic abilities after witnessing a soul depart a dying body during her childhood. He learns about Teofilo, kidnapped as a baby and raised by Kikapu Indians in Northern Mexico. The author weaves these individual stories into the larger narrative of Mexican-American experience. His personal search becomes both a tribute to his elders and a meditation on cultural identity. The investigation reveals how one family's journey reflects the soul of an entire people.
Genres: family, american-fiction, 20th-century, american, biography-memoir, 21st-century, cultural, family-drama
Vibes: atmospheric, emotional, intimate, lyrical, thought-provoking
Tropes: family-secrets, personal-search, unreliable-narrator
Setting: America, Mexico, Northern Mexico, San Antonio, Texas
Period: 1939, 20th-century, 21st-century
284 pages · Paperback · Penguin Publishing Group