Deborah Mason

Nonfiction

Supreme Inequality

Review by Deborah Mason

America has become more unequal since the 1960s. The middle class has shrunk, schools are more segregated, and mass incarceration has devastated African American and Latinx communities. Meanwhile, wealthy individuals and corporations have an outsize say in elections, resulting in lower taxes, more favorable legislation and preferential treatment from government agencies. What is not well known, however, is the role the Supreme Court has played in creating these inequities.

The Supreme Court is often seen as the defender of the underdog. Cases like Brown v. Board of Education and Miranda v. Arizona seemed to guarantee all Americans equal rights and due process under the law. However, as Adam Cohen meticulously documents in Supreme Inequality, certain justices on the Supreme Court have worked to not only erode the rights of the poor and middle class but also to extend the interests of the rich. In many ways, Cohen argues, the court is the author of the increased inequality in American society, and of that inequality’s many consequences.

Cohen is uniquely qualified to write this book. After graduating from Harvard Law, where he was the editor of the Harvard Law Review, he worked at the Southern Poverty Law Center and the ACLU. He then pursued a career in journalism, eventually joining the editorial board of the New York Times. Cohen’s lucid writing makes even the most difficult court cases understandable as he expertly details the evolution of the law in areas as diverse as the workplace, criminal law, campaign contributions and the corporate boardroom. Cohen’s greatest strength, however, is his ability to explain clearly and urgently how the court, supposedly the least political of the three branches of the government, has relentlessly pursued a political agenda that has made Americans less equal and less secure.

If nothing else, Supreme Inequality reveals the extensive role the court plays in everyday American life. More importantly, it is a sobering history of how the court has disregarded precedent, statutory law and common sense to achieve its political agenda. The only question that remains is if it’s too late to do anything about it.

America has become more unequal since the 1960s. The middle class has shrunk, schools are more segregated, and mass incarceration has devastated African American and Latinx communities. Meanwhile, wealthy individuals and corporations have an outsize say in elections, resulting in lower taxes, more favorable legislation…

NonfictionMilitary HistoryHistory

A Game of Birds and Wolves

Review by Deborah Mason

Games can be deadly serious—ask any soccer parent—but we generally see them as child’s play. It is therefore surprising that in war, where the stakes are the absolute highest, games play an essential role. War games allow armies to test officers’ strategies and decision-making in a risk-free environment, and lessons learned on the game board are frequently transferred to the battlefield. One man who thoroughly grasped this idea was Captain Gilbert Roberts, who, along with his team of eight officers from the Women’s Royal Naval Service (WRNS, popularly known as the Wrens), devised a game that arguably changed the course of World War II. In A Game of Birds and Wolves, Simon Parkin tells this remarkable and little-known story.

In 1941, Great Britain was in danger of being starved of food and supplies by U-boat attacks. Roberts realized that, by simulating the conditions of war as closely as possible on an auditorium-sized game board, he could devise countermeasures to the tactics used by U-boat captains. He could also train submarine hunters without the risk of failure. Ultimately, the men who played the game used their knowledge to defeat the U-boat fleet in the decisive Battle of Birds and Wolves. Without the Wrens, who not only ran the games but also helped design new scenarios and countermeasures, none of this would have happened.

Like a well-designed game, A Game of Birds and Wolves is fun, informative and intense. Parkin naturally focuses much of his attention on Roberts, whose story of triumph over adversity and skepticism is a great read. But the book really shines when Parkin reclaims the history of the Wrens. Although women played a vital role in the war, their work was often undervalued, and much of this history was lost or destroyed. The Wrens, working with Roberts, were instrumental to an Allied victory, but few among us know what we owe to them. 

Parkin’s respect and affection for these women is apparent on every page, and his extensive research and excellent storytelling go a long way toward paying that debt.

Games can be deadly serious—ask any soccer parent—but we generally see them as child’s play. It is therefore surprising that in war, where the stakes are the absolute highest, games play an essential role. War games allow armies to test officers’ strategies and decision-making in…

NonfictionMemoir

A Bookshop in Berlin

Review by Deborah Mason

Like many Europeans who lived through World War II, Françoise Frenkel led an eventful life. A Polish Jewish woman born in 1889, she studied literature in Paris. In 1921, she opened a French bookstore in Berlin. She returned to Paris in 1939, fleeing the Nazis. She made several attempts to escape to Switzerland and eventually succeeded. But if Frenkel hadn’t written a memoir, she would likely be completely unknown. Rien où poser sa tête (No Place to Lay One’s Head) was published in Switzerland in 1945, sold a few copies and quickly sank into collective forgetfulness. Then a copy was found in 2010 at a sale for a French charity, and it’s now republished as A Bookshop in Berlin.

It’s interesting the way a title can affect a reader’s perception of a book. The title No Place to Lay One’s Head draws attention to Frenkel’s personal hardships, to the terror and cruelty she encountered. There is plenty of suspense as Frenkel describes her brushes with disaster—but the title A Bookshop in Berlin instead emphasizes her improbable bookstore, illuminating a deeper truth about Frenkel’s experiences.

Like a bookstore, Frenkel’s memoir contains not one story but many. There is, of course, her own odyssey to safety—but there’s also the heroic tale of M. and Mme. Marius, Frenkel’s friends and saviors; the comedy of the glamorous refugee who hoodwinked the Germans into saving her son; the tragedy of the young man accused of murdering his wife; the melodrama of hardened prison guards; and ultimately, a story of liberation and redemption. 

Like many Europeans who lived through World War II, Françoise Frenkel led an eventful life. A Polish Jewish woman born in 1889, she studied literature in Paris. In 1921, she opened a French bookstore in Berlin. She returned to Paris in 1939, fleeing the Nazis. She…

NonfictionBusiness & Finance

Homewreckers

Review by Deborah Mason

Everyone knows that millions of people lost their homes when the housing bubble burst. Belief in the continued increase in housing prices spurred millions to grab the American dream of homeownership, enticed by wildly lenient mortgages that encouraged them to purchase homes beyond their means. Banks bundled these risky mortgages together and sold them on Wall Street. Everything was great—until it wasn’t.

When the housing market slowed down, things spiraled out of control, bringing the stock market to its greatest decline since 1929. Some of the most prestigious banking houses went out of business, while others teetered on the edge of collapse, saved only by billions of tax dollars.

What many people don’t know, though, is how much money was made as the result of the housing crisis. In Homewreckers, Pulitzer Prize finalist Aaron Glantz untangles how a group of Wall Street bankers and hedge fund partners (including future Treasury Secretary Steve Mnuchin and Commerce Secretary Wilbur Ross) transformed a national crisis into a financial bonanza for themselves. Even more important, however, Glantz demonstrates how their gain came at our country’s cost through decreased homeownership, diminished wealth for low- and middle-income Americans and the destruction of whole communities.

Glantz does an excellent job explaining the financial complexities of the housing crisis and its fallout. But the real strength of his book comes from the personal stories he weaves in to illustrate his points. The stories of Sandra Jolley, Beulah Butler and Shawn Pruett bring home the real pain experienced by American families as a result of the homewreckers’ actions. Yet, the most surprising stories are those of the homewreckers themselves. These men are not sadists. Instead, their actions stem from an insatiable need to acquire more: more money, more homes, more wives. Glantz makes it clear that they are not monsters but mere humans who have done monstrous things—and, if left unchecked, are likely to do them again.

Everyone knows that millions of people lost their homes when the housing bubble burst. Belief in the continued increase in housing prices spurred millions to grab the American dream of homeownership, enticed by wildly lenient mortgages that encouraged them to purchase homes beyond their means.…

NonfictionMemoir

Unfollow

Review by Deborah Mason

There are two ways to write about a dam bursting. You can begin at the exact moment the cresting waters rupture the wall and surge toward freedom—or you can start long before that, with the first drops of rain that eventually overrun the embankments. In Unfollow, Megan Phelps-Roper chooses the second approach to explain why she left the notorious Westboro Baptist Church.

One of the most surprising aspects of this remarkable book is how loving the Westboro Baptist Church was—at least to its members in good standing. Phelps-Roper’s childhood was idyllic in many ways. She was surrounded by caring, intelligent and passionate adults who adored her. By the age of 8, however, she was joining them in protesting against the LGBTQ community and being rewarded for spewing vile slogans. This strange juxtaposition defined her youth: Phelps-Roper went to school, shopped at the mall, ate popcorn at the movies—and then rushed out to picket the funerals of soldiers killed in Iraq or to publicly pray for more children to be shot after Newtown. By the time she was in her 20s, Phelps-Roper was in charge of the church’s social media presence, using her formidable intellect to defend the reprehensible. And yet, throughout her book is an awareness that each incident contributed to the erosion of her faith in Westboro’s theology.

It’s ironic that the very qualities her family instilled in her—intellectual rigor, intimate knowledge of the Bible, courage in the face of fierce opposition—led to her inevitable departure. When she could no longer support either the church’s theology of hatred or its belief in its own infallibility, she renounced them. 

Phelps-Roper is a masterful writer. She writes movingly about the searing pain of separation from those she continues to love, and beautifully about how freeing herself from a theology of hate has given her life greater meaning and purpose. In a time of growing intolerance, Unfollow is essential reading.

There are two ways to write about a dam bursting. You can begin at the exact moment the cresting waters rupture the wall and surge toward freedom—or you can start long before that, with the first drops of rain that eventually overrun the embankments. In…

NonfictionHistory

The Plateau

Review by Deborah Mason

Maggie Paxson is an anthropologist who uses analytical methods to see how groups of people click. In her fieldwork, Paxson has seen countless examples of conflict and violence—so many, in fact, that she didn’t want to study war no more (as the old spiritual goes). She wanted to study peace. But instead of going “down by the riverside,” Paxson went to a plateau: the Plateau du Vivarais-Lignon in southern France.

The people of the plateau are extraordinary. They have provided refuge to the hunted and unwanted for centuries. Yad Vashem, Israel’s official memorial to the victims of the Holocaust, honored the plateau village of Le Chambon as “Righteous Among Nations” for their aid to Jewish refugees. Daniel Trocmé, who was a distant relative of Paxson, died in a concentration camp because he refused to abandon his Jewish students. Even now, the plateau continues to welcome and protect refugees. Here, Paxson thought, was the perfect laboratory for determining how peace can be created by a community. The Plateau is the result.

Paxson soon discovered that, unlike the individual acts of violence that make up a war, peace cannot be counted. Peace is not linear but is the result of the deliberate interaction of the past with the present to create a future. Consequently, Paxson’s book is also nonlinear. She pieces together her own memories, observations from her life among the inhabitants of the plateau and, especially, the details of Daniel Trocmé’s life and death. Paxson’s beautiful writing threads these stories together so exquisitely that at times I had to stop and take a breath, even cry, before carrying on.

Although it has elements of memoir, biography and anthropological fieldwork, The Plateau is more than the sum of its parts. It’s a complex portrait of a place whose inhabitants have made a commitment to loving the stranger who arrives at their door, even when to do so demands the greatest sacrifice. Paxson acknowledges the difficulty and danger that this kind of love demands, but ultimately The Plateau demonstrates that it isn’t an impossible ideal to achieve. It is real and attainable, because it has been and continues to be practiced on the plateau.

Maggie Paxson is an anthropologist who uses analytical methods to see how groups of people click. In her fieldwork, Paxson has seen countless examples of conflict and violence—so many, in fact, that she didn’t want to study war no more (as the old spiritual goes).…

NonfictionHistory

The Patient Assassin

Review by Deborah Mason

On March 13, 1940, an exiled Indian man killed the former Lieutenant Governor of the Punjab to avenge a massacre that took place nearly 21 years earlier. The Patient Assassin: A True Tale of Massacre, Revenge, and India’s Quest for Independence, by biographer and radio presenter Anita Anand, sheds critical light on one of history’s coldest dishes of revenge: Udham Singh’s murder of Sir Michael O’Dwyer.

The two men were fatally linked by the Amritsar Massacre. In April of 1919, O’Dwyer set off a chain of events that led General Reginald Dyer to order his men to fire on a crowd of thousands of unarmed men, women and children in Jallianwala Bagh, a popular garden in the Punjabi city of Amritsar. Estimates of the number of people killed range from the official 379 to over 1,000. Singh, who lived in Amritsar, swore that he would avenge the victims.

Singh and O’Dwyer could not have been less alike. One was an impoverished Punjabi orphan and the other an ambitious Anglo–Irish civil servant who became the second most powerful man in the Raj. Anand expertly weaves their stories together, making their unlikely meeting both inevitable and tragic. She also recognizes that many questions surrounding Singh will remain unanswered. The historical record is murky, and the intelligence files surrounding his case have only recently (and incompletely) been released. Singh himself—at turns a charming rogue, a spinner of tales and a passionate revolutionary—didn’t seem to know if he was a patriot, madman or pawn. This lack of clarity allowed Singh to be labeled either a martyr or a terrorist, depending on the point of view of the person telling his story. Anand, whose family was directly affected by the massacre, rejects these easy labels. Instead, she delves into the historical record with rigor and objectivity, painting a portrait of Singh that goes far beyond his symbolic value.

The Patient Assassin is not a whodunit. We know who the killer is before we finish reading the preface. Nonetheless, it’s a suspenseful work of historical detection. Like a le Carré novel, it has a complex, weblike structure that creates a nuanced and compelling account of the massacre and its fallout. As a result, Anand rescues Singh from his pigeonhole, revealing a flawed man driven by anger, guilt and grief. 

The Patient Assassin is not a whodunit. We know who the killer is before we finish reading the preface. Nonetheless, it’s a suspenseful work of historical detection. Like a le Carré novel, it has a complex, weblike structure that creates a nuanced and compelling account of the massacre and its fallout. As a result, Anand rescues Singh from his pigeonhole, revealing a flawed man driven by anger, guilt and grief. 

NonfictionHistory

D-Day Girls

Review by Deborah Mason

Admit it. When you hear “female spy,” you see images of Mata Hari beguiling her hapless victims into confiding secret enemy plans. But beauty so fatally powerful can easily transform from a spy’s best weapon into her greatest liability.

Instead, to be a successful female spy, a woman needs to be outwardly ordinary, a human chameleon who can hide in plain view. She must also have brains, courage and obstinacy. An ability to react quickly to unpleasant surprises—such as concealing incriminating evidence during a Gestapo arrest—is a plus. And the capacity to withstand torture without divulging any information about your spy ring is also desirable. These are the women of D-Day Girls, Sarah Rose’s gripping account of a generation of heroes.

In 1942, the Special Operations Executive, established by Winston Churchill to organize sabotage in German territory, decided to train women to operate behind enemy lines. This decision was not the result of early feminist principles but was instead born out of necessity, since men were rare commodities in wartime. It wasn’t a popular decision either: Colonel Maurice Buckmaster had to sell his idea directly to Churchill before he could get permission to implement it. But the accomplishments of these extraordinary “ordinary” women outweighed any skepticism. They organized, trained and armed thousands of resistance fighters who, on and after D-Day, were able to divert German attention away from the beaches in Normandy.

But their story is also marked by sadness and tragedy. Betrayed by the incompetence and arrogance of their commanders and fellow agents, scores of these women died under hideous circumstances. Others survived but were scarred. 

Their deeds may have been forgotten and their names obscured, but with her book, Rose has resurrected them, so that Odette Sansom, Andrée Borrel, Lise de Baissac and their sisters in arms will be remembered and honored.

To be a successful female spy, a woman needs to be outwardly ordinary, a human chameleon who can hide in plain view. She must also have brains, courage and obstinacy. An ability to react quickly to unpleasant surprises—such as concealing incriminating evidence during a Gestapo arrest—is a plus. And the capacity to withstand torture without divulging any information about your spy ring is also desirable. These are the women of D-Day Girls, Sarah Rose’s gripping account of a generation of heroes.

History

The Unwanted

Review by Deborah Mason

Michael Dobbs is a journalist, author of a trilogy about the Cold War and staff member at the U.S. Holocaust Memorial Museum, specializing in the Rwandan and Bosnian genocides. In The Unwanted: America, Auschwitz, and a Village Caught in Between, he tells the story of Kippenheim, a small German village near the French border. Before Hitler came to power, it had a small, close-knit and bustling Jewish population. However, by the time of the book’s opening on Kristallnacht, Kippenheim’s Jews had been subjected to escalating state-sponsored violence, mass arrests and economic sanctions. Their world torn apart, emigration was their only reasonable option.

The Unwanted follows four extended families as they try to escape from Germany. Through Dobbs’ richly detailed narrative, we come to care deeply for the Wachenheimers, Valfers, Wertheimers and Auerbachers as they confront each new barrier to their salvation. And as the subtitle implies, many of those barriers were raised not by the Nazis—who, at that time, were eager for the Jews to leave—but by the American government. In those days before the Refugee Act, asylum seekers had to prove their worthiness to enter the U.S. by jumping through a series of difficult, expensive and frequently contradictory hoops. Isolationism, anti-Semitism and moral cowardice conspired to strand the Jews of Kippenheim in the ports of Vichy France. Some escaped, mostly through luck, but many others did not. Instead, they were deported to be murdered in Auschwitz.

This is more than the history of one town: Kippenheim stands in for the thousands upon thousands of other villages, shtetls and neighborhoods that disappeared in the wake of the Holocaust. Dobbs’ book reminds us that the Nazis and their allies murdered not only individuals but also the webs of friendship, commerce, culture and religion that make a community. This is also a cautionary tale of what happens when human lives are sacrificed in the name of political ideology and bigotry—a lesson that resonates today.

By the time Hitler came to power, Kippenheim’s Jews had been subjected to escalating state-sponsored violence, mass arrests and economic sanctions. Their world torn apart, emigration was their only reasonable option.
NonfictionEssays

This One Will Hurt You

Review by Deborah Mason

Paul Crenshaw grew up in Logan County, Arkansas. It was not an idyllic childhood, and it failed to evolve into either a comfortable adolescence or an easy adulthood. Punctuated by disasters, Crenshaw’s life is full of material. From a young age, Crenshaw witnessed violence and poverty. He endured ferocious tornadoes and iron-cold winters. His rural hometown has been poisoned by the meth crisis, and he has mourned the deaths of family and friends. Crenshaw has also seen boundless generosity, enduring love and fearsome beauty. In This One Will Hurt You, Crenshaw transforms these episodes into a collection of hard-hitting essays that leave the reader in no doubt that he is a writer of considerable talent.

Autobiographical essays are difficult to write successfully. It is painful to recount past hurts, and the temptation to avoid that pain by offering comforting platitudes can mar an otherwise admirable piece of writing. However, Crenshaw, a 2017 recipient of the prestigious Pushcart Prize, writes honestly, luminously and unsparingly. The opening essay, “After the Ice,” examines with almost superhuman objectivity the traumatic impact of the murder of Crenshaw’s baby nephew. “In Storm Country” reveals the vicious beauty of the countless tornadoes Crenshaw experienced as a child. The titular closing essay is about the death of yet another innocent, and as its title promises, it is a painful read. In between, there are tales of wonder, humor, sorrow and awe—all of them told by a clear-eyed writer who refuses to flinch from the truth.

These essays are written with poetic stoicism. Paradoxically, this is precisely this quality that makes Crenshaw’s essays powerfully redemptive. Like the tornadoes he describes, This One Will Hurt You reveals that it is the harshness of life that creates its beauty and gives it meaning.

Paul Crenshaw grew up in Logan County, Arkansas. It was not an idyllic childhood, and it failed to evolve into either a comfortable adolescence or an easy adulthood. Punctuated by disasters, Crenshaw’s life is full of material. From a young age, Crenshaw witnessed violence and poverty. He endured ferocious tornadoes and iron-cold winters. His rural hometown has been poisoned by the meth crisis, and he has mourned the deaths of family and friends. Crenshaw has also seen boundless generosity, enduring love and fearsome beauty. In This One Will Hurt You, Crenshaw transforms these episodes into a collection of hard-hitting essays that leave the reader in no doubt that he is a writer of considerable talent.

NonfictionMemoir

The Pianist from Syria

Review by Deborah Mason

In many ways, Aeham Ahmad is an ordinary man. The son of Palestinian refugees, he grew up in Yarmouk, home to 160,000 other Palestinians in Damascus. His father, a musician blind since childhood, bribed and wheedled young Ahmad into practicing the piano for hours at a time. His talent grew steadily, but only later did he develop a profound love for music.

Ahmad achieved his dreams at a young age. Still in his 20s, he and his father built a thriving business selling musical instruments and giving lessons. He married a strong, intelligent woman, and together they brought a sweet boy into the world. But in June of 2012, the Syrian civil war made its way to Yarmouk, and all those dreams crumbled beneath the weight of the bombs, mortars and bullets fired by both the Syrian Army and the different militias fighting against them.

In The Pianist from Syria, Ahmad tells the story of his family’s terrible deprivations during the civil war. His losses are profound, and it was truly miraculous that he and his family were finally able to escape to safety in Germany. Yet the true hero of this story is Ahmad’s music. Pushing his piano into the bomb-ruined streets of Yarmouk, Ahmad and his impromptu choirs sang out songs of protest, mourning and hope. He rejected the jingoism of both the Syrian government and the militias. Instead, his music illuminated the horrors of war, while celebrating the simple dreams of ordinary people caught up in a nightmare. His songs were truly subversive, because they served no faction. Soon a YouTube and Facebook phenomenon, Ahmad became an increasingly marked man.

Written in an open, honest style, The Pianist from Syria is a testament to the resilience and beauty of ordinary people with simple dreams.

In many ways, Aeham Ahmad is an ordinary man. The son of Palestinian refugees, he grew up in Yarmouk, home to 160,000 other Palestinians in Damascus. His father, a musician blind since childhood, bribed and wheedled young Ahmad into practicing the piano for hours at a time. His talent grew steadily, but only later did he develop a profound love for music.

NonfictionHistory

Fault Lines

Review by Deborah Mason

When Americans woke up on November 7, 2016, it seemed as if we were not one country, but two. There were the red states and the blue states; the pro-Trumps and the anti-Trumps; the Republicans and the Democrats. In the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s election, it seems to some that we are no longer a united nation, but the uneasy yoking of enemy camps. However, in Fault Lines: A History of the United States Since 1974, Princeton professors Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer demonstrate that the current crisis is nothing new. Instead, it is the result of fissures that have been deepening for decades.

In the 1950s, there was an expectation that middle-class white men would be the dominant breadwinners, women would be relegated to the home, and people of color would continue to be treated as second-class citizens. However, as underrepresented groups demanded and fought for equal rights and opportunities, cracks in the status quo began to emerge—sometimes explosively. Like volcanic eruptions along a fault line, the Watts riots in LA, the Stonewall riots in New York City and the Kent State shootings were symptoms of a deeper schism. Aided by advances in technology such as the internet and cable news, along with a growing distrust of politicians in the wake of Watergate and subsequent scandals, the cracks deepened, and American opposition hardened into enmity. President Trump may very well be an accelerant of this process, but he is also a product of it.

Fault Lines started as a series of lectures by Kruse and Zelizer offered at Princeton. Judging from the resulting book, the class was no doubt a wonderful introduction to a critical era in our history. Even for those who lived through these events, Fault Lines gives brilliant context to help us understand how Americans have become so fragmented and rigid in our beliefs. Perhaps, with understanding, we can begin to soften our divisions and heal.

 

This article was originally published in the January 2019 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

When Americans woke up on November 7, 2016, it seemed as if we were not one country, but two. There were the red states and the blue states; the pro-Trumps and the anti-Trumps; the Republicans and the Democrats. In the aftermath of President Donald Trump’s election, it seems to some that we are no longer a united nation, but the uneasy yoking of enemy camps. However, in Fault Lines: A History of the United States Since 1974, Princeton professors Kevin M. Kruse and Julian E. Zelizer demonstrate that the current crisis is nothing new. Instead, it is the result of fissures that have been deepening for decades.

NonfictionMemoir

Retablos

Review by Deborah Mason

As explained by Octavio Solis, a distinguished Latino author who has written over 20 plays, a retablo is a small votive painting commonly associated with Latin American cultures. It’s usually painted on cheap, reused metal, and it tells the story of a near-disaster that was survived only by the grace of God. By commemorating the event, the retablo can transform that story of salvation into a myth. But memory is slippery, and retelling a story, even on a buckled sheet of metal, results in embellishments and refinements. Facts become murky as names are forgotten and events misremembered. Yet despite its imprecision, the retablo expresses a profound truth not only about its maker but also the world he or she lives in. As a result, the retablo itself becomes a part of the myth as well.

There is struggle here, but there is also redemption.

The 50 episodes in Solis’ memoir are like retablos because they are the true, if imprecise, myths that explain his life and his world. Set in the gritty border town of El Paso, where Solis spent his youth during the 1960s and ’70s, the stories of Retablos are as harsh and dry as the sunbaked land along the Rio Grande that he so vividly evokes. Unlike the figures in traditional retablos, the characters populating Solis’ memoir are far from saintly. Instead, he peoples his retablos with the bullies, immigration police, drug users and prostitutes of his hometown, as well as with the family that was at once a solace and a frustration. Solis is dogged by violence and poverty, and his family suffers greatly from the strain of living a life in which disaster can strike without notice or mercy. There is struggle here, but there is also redemption and reconciliation, joy and love.

These written retablos reconstruct Solis’ youth, with its dangers, juxtapositions and all-too-few victories. It is a distinctly Latino experience in a distinctly Latino world. But this story is universal—we all grow up, and we all need to reconcile who we are with who we were. Like the images he emulates, Solis’ stories transcend the limits of borders and time.

 

This article was originally published in the November 2018 issue of BookPage. Download the entire issue for the Kindle or Nook.

As explained by Octavio Solis, a distinguished Latino author who has written over 20 plays, a retablo is a small votive painting commonly associated with Latin American cultures. It’s usually painted on cheap, reused metal, and it tells the story of a near-disaster that was survived only by the grace of God. By commemorating the event, the retablo can transform that story of salvation into a myth.

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