Rating: ****
Tags: Fiction, General, Literary, Urban, Hispanic & Latino, Lang:en
Summary
We slipped into this country like
thieves, onto the land that once was ours. With these words,
spoken by an illegal Mexican day laborer, The Madonnas of Echo
Park takes us into the unseen world of Los Angeles, following
the men and women who cook the meals, clean the homes, and
struggle to lose their ethnic identity in the pursuit of the
American dream. When a dozen or so girls and mothers gather on
an Echo Park street corner to act out a scene from a Madonna
music video, they find themselves caught in the crossfire of a
drive-by shooting. In the aftermath, Aurora Esperanza grows
distant from her mother, Felicia, who as a housekeeper in the
Hollywood Hills establishes a unique relationship with a
detached housewife. The Esperanzas’ shifting lives
connect with those of various members of their neighborhood. A
day laborer trolls the streets for work with men half his age
and witnesses a murder that pits his morality against his
illegal status; a religious hypocrite gets her comeuppance when
she meets the Virgin Mary at a bus stop on Sunset Boulevard; a
typical bus route turns violent when cultures and egos collide
in the night, with devastating results; and Aurora goes on a
journey through her gentrified childhood neighborhood in a
quest to discover her own history and her place in the land
that all Mexican Americans dream of, "the land that belongs to
us again." Like the Academy Award–winning film
Crash, The Madonnas of Echo Park follows the intersections of
its characters and cultures in Los Angeles. In the footsteps of
Junot Díaz and Sherman Alexie, Brando Skyhorse in his
debut novel gives voice to one neighborhood in Los Angeles with
an astonishing— and unforgettable—lyrical
power.