Parrot in the Oven: Mi Vida - Hardcover

Martinez, Victor

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0060267062 ISBN 13: 9780060267063

Publisher: HarperCollins, 1996

Synopsis

Dreaming of finding respect, Manuel Hernandez faces a difficult, tension-filled year as he prepares for his test of courage, which will mark his initiation into a gang, in a story of a young Chicano boy's coming-of-age experiences in California.

About this title

Review:

It's no wonder that Parrot in the Oven won the 1996 National Book Award for Young People's Fiction. Victor Martinez's lush, evocative prose leaps from the page, grabbing the reader by the throat right from the start. Not only do we witness Manuel Hernandez's coming of age, we feel every juicy moment of it: his ache for something just out of reach, the confusion of seeing his family with new eyes, the tickle and flood of awakening passion. It's difficult to portray transformation from the inside, but Martinez does so with grace and power.

About the Author:

Victor Martinez was born and raised in Fresno, California and now lives in San Francisco. His poems, short stories, and essays have appeared in journals such as The Iowa Review and Bloomsbury Review. This is his first novel.

Victor Martinez says that his background "makes up the stuff of my work." Born and raised in Fresno, California, the fourth in a family of twelve children, he attended California State University at Fresno and Stanford University. He has also worked as a field laborer, welder, truck driver, firefighter, teacher, and office clerk.

Mr. Martinez's poems, short stories, and essays have appeared in a number of prestigious publications, including Si, El Andar, The Bloomsbury Review, The High Plains Literary Review, and The Iowa Review.

Victor Martinez lives with his wife in San Francisco. Parrot in the Oven: Mi vida--the story of Manny Hernandez's struggles with the awkwardness of adolescence as he searches for acceptance and becomes a vato firme, a stand-up guy--is his first novel.

About this edition

• Publisher: HarperCollins
• Publication date: 1996
• ISBN 10: 0060267062
• ISBN 13: 9780060267063
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 224