House of Houses - Hardcover

Mora, Pat

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0807072001 ISBN 13: 9780807072004

Publisher: Beacon Pr, 1997

Synopsis

A family memoir told in the voices of ancestors, this book is about oppression and survival and sometimes triumph as "any book about a Mexican American family must be." Mora's house of houses is large, imagined, traditional, a refuge from the desert's heat, where the generations of her family, living and dead, mingle through the months of a single year.

About this title

About the Author

Pat Mora, a popular presenter across the country at conferences, campuses, libraries, and schools, speaks and offers workshops on literacy, creativity, leadership, the writing process, and serving diverse populations. "Sharing Bookjoy: Creative Literacy Leaders" and "ZING! Seven Creativity Practices for Educators and Students" are among her more popular themes.

The author of award-winning books of nonfiction and poetry for adults and of many children's books, Pat received honorary doctorates in letters from North Carolina State University and SUNY Buffalo and is an honorary member of the American Library Association. Among her other awards are the 2006 National Hispanic Cultural Center Literary Award, a Civitella Ranieri Fellowship, a Visiting Carruthers Chair at the University of New Mexico, a Poetry Fellowship from the National Endowment for the Arts, and a Kellogg National Leadership Fellowship.

A former teacher, university administrator, and consultant, Pat is the founder of the family literacy initiative El día de los niños/El día de los libros, Children's Day/Book Day (Día), now housed at the American Library Association. The yearlong commitment to linking all children to books, languages, and cultures and of sharing what Pat calls "bookjoy," culminates in national celebrations in April.

Pat was named one of the "Fifty Most Inspiring Authors in the World" by Poets & Writers magazine in February 2010.

Reviews

A lyrical celebration of several generations of a Mexican- American family in El Paso, Tex., by a poet and essayist (Nepantla, not reviewed). 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. She imagines a family home, an ``adobe body to house the spirits I gather,'' a space ``through which generations move, each bringing its gifts, handing down languages and stories, recipes for living,'' and then populates it with several generations of family, living and dead: her austere grandparents; her loving, quarreling aunts; her quiet, beloved father; and her own bright, affectionate, independent children. The book's 12 chapters are devoted to different family members, who illuminate in the stories they tell Mora both their own lives and their relationship with the larger family. Indeed, it is the family as both the source of life and the one sure guarantee of a kind of immortality that figures most here. The stories are often of mundane matters: of vanished riches (the family settles in El Paso in 1913 after losing everything during the Mexican Revolution), of frustrated romances, and of course of the battles the family fights over several generations to preserve its identity in a new country. 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. Several figures stand out, including Mora's maiden aunt Lobo, repelled by the idea of physical intimacy between men and women but fiercely protective of (and indulgent toward) the family's children. 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 this century. (12 b&w photos, not seen) (Author tour) -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.

Poet Mora's poignant family memoir begins with a gathering of ghosts around the kitchen table, an initially awkward narrative device that soon begins to make perfect sense. By visualizing her beloved dead--her sweet father, spirited mother, patient and loving grandmothers, uncles, and doting but eccentric aunts--Mora makes it clear that they continue to actively shape her life. Her complex and dramatic family history, however, 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. Donna Seaman

Poet Mora (Confetti, Lee & Low, 1996) has written the memoir of a Mexican American family in the form of voices of her ancestors living and dead. These 12 chapters, one for each month of the year, are deeply meaningful; each story, event, and name has a message about life, love, dependence, and memory. For example, we read of Mora's grandmother, the Mexican Cinderella, a red-haired orphan taken in by wealthy relatives; her mother, Estella, the extrovert; and her father, Raul, whom we meet on the first page when her Aunt Chole asks, "How can you still be hungry if you're dead?" The book contains photographs and genealogical charts to enhance the reader's perceptions and understanding of this work as a social and historical document. It is reminiscent of Gabriel Garcia Marquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude as well as Amy Tan's The Joy Luck Club but at times becomes disjointed and overschematic, treating the most fantastic happenings as if they were everyday occurrences. Still, this allegorical tale, filled with superstitions, remedies, and events, may be useful for academic libraries and necessary for Latin American literary collections.?Susan Dearstyne, Hudson Valley Community Coll., Troy, N.Y.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Edition details

• Publisher: Beacon Pr
• Publication date: 1997
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0807072001
• ISBN 13: 9780807072004
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 296