American Book Review
"...Candelaria captures...an inheritance that very few Chicano writers have been able to depict without showing as if it were outside the American experience."
Publishers Weekly
- Publisher's Weekly
American Book Award-winner Candelaria describes the life of Alfonso Pena, the antihero of his title novella, as "[a] pair of muddy shoes that left its tracks everywhere." Written out of his mother's will, in danger of being evicted from his home by his own siblings, unemployable thanks to his past as a union organizer, Alfonso angrily holds everyone but himself responsible for his failures. Bit by bit, a pivotal event in Alfonso's past comes to light. In the 1970s, an ill-conceived rally speech at a teachers' demonstration led to fatal violence. Haunted by this event, Alfonso longs nevertheless for the lost excitement of the Movimiento. Instead of redirecting his energies toward a family or profession, throwback Alfonso tries to stage a demonstration at a local trial, but his efforts fall dismally flat. In this novella, Candelaria's skillful storytelling, wry humor and lack of sentimentality bring sympathy and interest to the plight of an unlikable character. What follows this strong opening is often far less complex. "Radio Waves," about a disturbed child's increasing detachment from reality, is simplistic in its indictment of the boy's parents, who seem morality-play representations of materialism. On the other hand, in "Dear Rosita," a story composed of letters from a working-class father in New Mexico to his Ivy League daughter, the father's sacrifices and love for his daughter bring the story to the border of saccharine. Clearly, Candelaria can create compelling characters, can write masterful tragicomic scenes and has considerable insight into Latino life in New Mexico; here he employs these admirable gifts only erratically. (Nov.)
Kirkus Reviews
A second collection, mostly set among the Chicanos of the American Southwest. Perhaps Cesar Chavez has a novel in him. It would be a good thing, frankly, since Candelaria (The Day the Cisco Kid Shot John Wayne, not reviewed, etc.) doesn't exactly have the old Steinbeck touch when it comes to sketching out the lives of the downtrodden masses along the Mexican border. All of the seven stories gathered here depict the frustrations experienced by Hispanic Americans struggling against Yankee injustice and duplicity. The title piece describes how an unemployed artist involves himself in the Sanctuary movement of the early 1980s in an attempt to win back some measure of self-respect ("First they steal your country, Alfonso thought. Then they steal your language so you can't even think naturally. Then, when you can't or won't talk gringo, they call you stupid") The corruption of politics is also at the center of "A Whole Lot of Justice," where a shady small-town sheriff kills a local for his lowrider Chevrolet. "The Dancing School" is a young girl's rather nasty reminiscence of her half-Anglo classmate, who (naturally) turns out to be quite untrustworthy. In "Family Thanksgiving," a former district attorney, who now represents sanctuary refugees, argues through the holiday dinner with his brother, a sellout cop, while "The Border" describes the obsessive, almost mystical search of a young man for his father in Mexico.
