House of Houses - Hardcover

Mora, Pat

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0807072001 ISBN 13: 9780807072004

Publisher: Beacon Press, 1997

Synopsis

Poet Mora's house is filled with her ancestors like great-grandmother Tomasa who leaves fruit behind her radio for the announcer she loves, and aunt Chole who, although blind, is the only one who sees the Virgin Mary when she appears in the garden. Drawing on magic realism, Mora channels her memoir through these ancestors, transforming the struggles of a single Mexican-American family with the magic and healing of ritual, language, stories, and recipes. Annotation c. by Book News, Inc., Portland, Or.

About this title

Review

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 Reviews"

"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 Reviews

Synopsis

Poet Mora's house is filled with her ancestors like great-grandmother Tomasa who leaves fruit behind her radio for the announcer she loves, and aunt Chole who, although blind, is the only one who sees the Virgin Mary when she appears in the garden. Drawing on magic realism, Mora channels her memoir through these ancestors, transforming the struggle

Edition details

• Publisher: Beacon Press
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0807072001
• ISBN 13: 9780807072004
• Binding: Hardcover
• Number of pages: 324