Poesía / Poetry
37º ENCUENTRO DE POETAS @ SALSARENGUE RESTAURANT 22 de mayo de 2010
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Foto por Richard Santiago
El Sol Latino June 2010
Libros / Books
Amigoland by Oscar Casares. (Little, Brown and Company, 2009). 368 pages. Oscar Casares debut novel Amigoland touches the heart with his story of two elderly Mexican-American brothers living in the border town of Brownsville, Texas. While their life’s story has its roots in the Mexican culture that nurtured and formed them, the themes in the novel touch universal human experiences. The stroke that landed Fidencio Rosales, 91, in Amigoland, a nursing home in Brownsville, left him with a befuddled mind, a cantankerous temperament, and five shoe boxes in which he stored “the last of his belongings in this world.” His memory fails him constantly. He can’t remember the names of his caretakers and therefore refers to them as The One With the Flat Face and The One With the Big Ones; his roommate is The One With The Hole in His Back; Fidencio calls himself alternately The One Who’s Losing His Mind and The One Who Loses Everything. But there is one thing Fidencio has never forgotten: the story his grandfather told him when he was just a boy. He says that Papa Grande was just seven years old when the Indians swept onto their Rancho Capote in Northern Mexico, killed his father with an arrow, scalped his uncle, and then kidnapped the young boy. Papa Grande was made to ride on horseback with one of the Indians for more than twelve continuous hours, and then was thrown to
the ground on the other side of the Rio Grande when the youngster could no longer “hold his water.” The Rosales family and younger siblings have heard this story many times and don’t believe it, attributing it either to the young Fidencio’s imagination or to nonsensical ramblings of the elderly Papa Grande’s feeble mind. But Fidencio insists that not only is the story true, he also promised his grandfather that one day he would return to the ranchito of Papa Grande’s birth. Fidencio is long estranged from his youngest brother, don Celestino, who is the only other survivor among his many siblings. Fidencio no longer remembers why they haven’t spoken in two decades. The novel then switches to don Celestino who suffers from diabetes and ends up in the hospital when his sugar level drops. While he still lives on his own and cherishes his independence, he nevertheless has come to depend upon his housekeeper and lover, the much younger Socorro who crosses the border to clean houses for her clients in Brownsville. She convinces Celestino to track down his oldest brother, and then convinces him to help Fidencio keep his promise to Papa Grande. Celestino doesn’t believe his brother’s story but agrees to take him back to the phantom Rancho Capote, mostly because he has come to dread facing a day for which there is nothing written on the calendar for him to do. Characters and plot problem in place, the novel unfolds with Celestino and Socorro busting Fidencio out of the nursing home and heading for the border. Cristina García, author of Dreaming in Cuban, is quoted on the cover of Amigoland. She praises the
book calling it “By turns hilarious and heartbreaking…” However, I found some of the things that perhaps were meant to be funny, actually quite sad, especially several scenes which take place in the nursing home. Casares writes, “This afternoon he [Fidencio] could lie down for his nap and wake up to find his memory had been erased completely or smeared to the point of being indistinguishable.” The plight of the very elderly is painfully clear as they’ve lost the dignity that comes from being able to care for and manage their own lives. Fidencio says, “nobody wants to know what an old man remembers.” The aptly named Socorro shows respect for Fidencio and understands an old man’s wish to fulfill a promise made to a loved one long ago. And she shows her lover Celestino, that there are pleasures and solace to be found in companionship at any age if one is willing to take the risks involved in commitment. Casares has a wonderful way with words giving the reader pictures of what he is describing. You can see the hapless Fidencio: “He had buttoned his shirt the wrong way and it looked as if one shoulder was higher than the other.” In one of the old man’s dreams, Fidencio saw an open grave: “Tangled roots bulge from the sides like varicose veins.” Casares was born in Brownsville and now teaches writing at the University of Texas at Austin. His first publication, a collection of short stories entitled Brownsville, has enjoyed critical success. Review by Cathleen C. Robinson, a retired teacher of Spanish and Latin American history, who is now a literary critic.
The Case Runner by Carlos Cisneros. (Arte Público, 2008). 368 pages. The Case Runner by first-time author Carlos Cisneros features Alejandro “Alex” del Fuerte, fresh out of law school, is returning home to South Texas, ready to open his solo practice, humble as it may be. He’s got dreams of making his mark in the world and in the courtroom. But when he meets Porfirio “Pilo” Medina, who just crossed the border in search of his wife and son, Alex is
suddenly dragged into a world of wrongdoings and political pay-offs rarely covered in law school. The mystery deepens when Pilo is murdered, seemingly to cover up the truth about his wife and child’s disappearance and a conspiracy to scam insurance companies out of millions of dollars. Alex fears that his short career as an attorney--not to mention his life--will come to a sudden end, as the heavyweight players involved will stop at nothing to keep him from exposing their dirty secrets, even if it means resorting to blackmail, bribery, and even murder. As Alex’s lofty ideals and dreams are dashed, and his own ethics and morals come into question, he must also fend off his girlfriend’s father, Lieutenant Governor Rene Yarrington, the most influential
person in Texas politics. Rampant corruption and big-money politics are set against the rich backdrop of border culture, with its distinctive way of life and unique perspective. And Alex, something between saint and sinner, is an apt guide to both the light and dark sides of the region. Long before he started work on his first Tex-Mex legal thriller, The Case Runner, Carlos Cisneros prosecuted cases with the Cameron County District Attorneys’ Office. It was there that he gained trial experience by prosecuting cases ranging from drug trafficking all the way to murder. Carlos Cisneros, a graduate of the University of Texas at Austin and South Texas College of Law in Houston, practices law in Brownsville, Texas, where he lives with his family.