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Original Title:	La maravilla
ISBN:	0452271606 (ISBN13: 9780452271609)
Edition Language:	English

La Maravilla

Alfredo Véa

Paperback | Pages: 320 pages

Rating: 4.15 | 325 Users | 39 Reviews

Narrative Conducive To Books La Maravilla

"Buckeye Road wasn't much of a town, just a place where a pocked and pitted road met an invisible street....It was less that unincorporated, it was unknown..."Yet it is here in the desert outside the Phoenix city limits that Alfredo Vea, Jr., finds a world of marvels spilling out of the adobe homes, tar-paper shacks, rusted Cadillacs, and battered trailers that are otherwise known as "Buckeye." Three thousand years of history and the myths of many cultures, as well as the fates of a dozen unforgettable characters, will all collide one hot summer in 1958; and the events played out on Buckeye Road will amount to nothing less than a new and life-affirming vision of the American Southwest...and of America itself.

The vivid symbol of Buckeye Road is La Maravilla—the blanket of marigolds laid upon graves in Mexican cemeteries, and the mythical dog, sacred to the Aztecs, who returns from the under-world to lead his master to Mictlan, the land of the dead. La Maravilla is the embodiment of belonging to two worlds, and of being torn between the love and fear of both. It is the condition and mystery borne by all who inhabit this American outback—whether they are Blacks, Chicanos, Asians, Native Americans, Mexicans, European immigrants, or Anglo misfits. For Beto, the young boy at the center of this magnificent story, it is the dilemma that he must somehow resolve and emerge from whole. For Beto has no parents to guide him—his mother has fled the "old ways" of her Mexican family for a bright new American life beyond the desert sunset in California, where "Indians are history and Sunday is for football, not church!" But in her place, and more than filling it, is Beto's aristocratic Spanish grandmother, a Catholic curandera with a passion for the music of Duke Ellington. He also has his grandfather, a Yaqui Indian whose spirit soars above a desert without frontiers. With this extraordinary first novel, Alfredo Vea, Jr., takes his place in the first rank of America

Define About Books La Maravilla

Title	:	La Maravilla
Author	:	Alfredo Véa
Book Format	:	Paperback
Book Edition	:	Deluxe Edition
Pages	:	Pages: 320 pages
Published	:	April 1st 1994 by Plume (first published January 1st 1993)
Categories	:	Fiction. Magical Realism. Literature

Rating About Books La Maravilla

Ratings: 4.15 From 325 Users | 39 Reviews

Crit About Books La Maravilla

Truly one of the best novels I have ever read. It is written in the magical realism style of so many Latin American writers that I love (such as Isabel Allende). Unfortunately, it was reading one of her novels that I realized I could never really be a good writer...not like that.

The author certainly held my attention throughout the book with all the obscurities of Buckeye, AZ in the early 1900's. However I feel that I missed some of the deeper insights revealed because I found it difficult to retain all the superstitious folklore of a catholic "bruja" (witch) and that of some Mexican and Native American spiritual blasphemy.

A stunning experience of a novel.

Magic realism turned up to 11. Essentially just a coming of age (from the boy Beto to the grown up Alberto) but leaving out all the things that are usually in comings-of-ages(!) and concentrating on spiritual education (mainly from his grandparents). The characterisation (esp of Abuela and Abuelo, but extending to neighbour Vernetta and all the locals), the dialogue, the sense of place and the spiritual framework are all off the scale. Easiest 5 Stars I've awarded in ages.

Words cannot do this justice.

This is pretty much my favorite book of all time. Beautiful, personal, gritty, authentic... A gorgeous work of magical realism that draws one in on a window of the desert in a time and place on the edge... Lovelovelove it

another one i picked up at the overstock book store