Combining poetic language and the traditions of magic realism to
paint a vivid portrait of her family, Pat Mora's House of Houses is
an unconventional memoir that reads as if every member, death
notwithstanding, is in one room talking, laughing, and crying. In a
salute to the Day of the Dead, the story begins with a visit to the
cemetery in which all of her deceased relatives come alive to share
stories of the family, literally bringing the food to their own
funerals. From there the book covers a year in the life of her
clan, revealing the personalities and events that Mora herself so
desperately yearns to know and understand.
"Poet Mora's complex and dramatic family history comprises more
than personal reminiscences: it also embraces resonant aspects of
Mexican American history. Mora recounts her family's traumatic
exodus from Mexico to escape the violence of Pancho Villa and his
forces and their struggles to begin new lives in another country.
To anchor her psychologically rich, dramatic, sometimes funny,
often touching multigenerational tale, Mora uses the image of a
house--the house of houses--during a single year, a fruitful
metaphor that allows her to dwell on the bright beauty of flowers,
birds, and trees, emblems of the loving legacy of her nurturing
family."--"Booklist"
"Mora has created an ingenious structure for these recollections
of her extended family, of their lives and the tales they share
about the family's history. Woven in with these memories are
recipes, fragments of songs and poetry, folk remedies, and jokes,
all of the small matters that most reveal a family's identity. In a
language deftly mingling the natural cadences of speech and
precise, poetic imagery, Mora believably summons up both a group of
tough, loving, idiosyncratic survivors and a vivid, detailed
portrait of life in the Southwest in the last century." --"Kirkus
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