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Las Madonnas De Echo Park (2000)

by Brando Skyhorse(Favorite Author)

3.55 of 5 Votes: 5

languge

English

genre

review 1: Skyhorse paints an intimate portrait of the lives of the people of Echo Park, an LA neighborhood. Some are Mexican immigrants, some are US born, and their lives are often grim and harsh. Deportation, gangs, killings--it left me, as the reader, with a sense of hopelessness. As I read, I even predicted a sad finish for one of the characters, knowing that I shouldn't expect a happy ending for him. And, sadly, I was right. But the book is beautifully written, the author interjects some humor, and the characters are alive and real.The Madonnas of Echo Park reads more like a series of short stories rather than a novel, though each is loosely connected through the characters. I preferred some chapters over others. I'm interested in reading more by this author because of his depic... moretion of the Mexican American community, which is rarely realistically portrayed in mainstream fiction.
review 2: I found this to be an interesting companion piece to Steinbeck’s Tortilla Flat, which I read earlier this year, but my opinion of this book may have suffered by the comparison. I do enjoy the concept of interrelated stories that create an overall novel-like effect and it has been used to memorable effect by Saroyan (The Human Comedy) and Steinbeck (Tortilla Flat and The Pastures of Heaven). I will start out by saying that I enjoyed at least half of these stories very much. The Blossoms of Los Feliz, Our Lady of the Lost Angels, Rules of the Road, Yo Soy El Army and The Hustler were quite good. The others I felt tried a bit too hard to force something extraordinary to come out of very ordinary characters and situations, which just didn’t work for me. The obsessions of teenaged girls with pop stars that drive several of the other stories didn’t resonate with me and the last (and in my opinion the weakest) story in the work, La Luz y La Tierra, seemed to be a conscious (and rather long) attempt to gather all of the story lines together when it just wasn’t necessary. In the weaker stories I felt that I was being beaten over the head with the “message” that I was expected to take away. Tortilla Flat deals with the same ethnic group at a different place in the history of California, yet Steinbeck brings a mythical air and humor to the lives of these characters that is lacking in Skyhorse’s work, which is admittedly more current and gritty, but also more deliberate and lacks the master’s subtle touch. But considering that this is Skyhorse’s first novel the jacket blurb to the effect that we may be witnessing the coming of a top notch new literary talent may well be true. I certainly plan on following this author. less

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