Carry Me Like Water

Diego, the deaf-mute son of Mexican migrant workers, and his pseudo-yuppie sister, Helen, find their lives transformed when Helen's roommate, a dedicated AIDS nurse, discovers she has the ability for out-of-body travel.

The river metaphor courses everywhere through this first novel by the author of the American Book Award-winning poetry collection Calendar of Dust. It's evident in the spate of words that gushes from every character, including deaf-mute Chicano Diego, who muses in dolorous torrents as he writes his life work, a suicide letter. There are characters, themes and plot elements enough for three books, let alone one, and the resultant cascade comes perilously close to overflowing the banks of potboilerdom. In El Paso, Diego misses his long-lost sister Maria Elena (aka Helen), who can't believe she deserves to be living the good life in Palo Alto, married to Eddie, a secret millionaire who misses his long-lost big brother, Jacob. Helen's nurse friend Lizzie inherits her long-lost twin brother's gift of astral travel and second sight, discovers her Mexican roots and feels mysteriously drawn to Jacob (who misses Eddie) while nursing his dying Chicano lover, who comes from El Paso. Although there are flashes of lyricism, the flood of repetitive verbiage quickly palls. Only after almost half of the characters die do the survivors reunite in El Paso. Readers who enjoy a long, involved narrative with ethnic detail may find this a good summer read. Major ad/promo; author tour.
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Poet Saenz's first novel blends ingenuousness into an ensemble cast of betrayed, alienated, abused individuals-to mixed results. In El Paso, Diego works for less than minimum wage in a bar-restaurant, writes a never-ending suicide note, and befriends the odd and crazy. In California, his sister, Maria Helena, doffs her Mexican-American identity to pass for Helen La Greca, an Italian. Her Anglo husband Eddie's father sexually abused him, later his mother killed his father and then herself, and Eddie has rejected his first name for his middle one. Lizzie is adopted by Anglos but is, in fact, Mexican American. The characters find that, though family and national origin can make a mess of one's life, facing one's past can assuage a myriad of personal trauma. Through snappy dialog, Saenz makes this culture of interior monolog seem sunny and normal. Recommended for larger literary collections.
Harold Augenbraum, Mercantile Lib., New York
Copyright 1995 Reed Business Information, Inc.

A very accomplished first novel defines the term riveting. Diego, unable to hear, works as cook, janitor, and waiter in a diner in El Paso, Texas; his is a poor life that brings him little happiness. His sister, Helen, clings to what she believes is a good life in California, denying her Hispanic heritage. Brother and sister have not communicated in years. Helen's best friend is an AIDS nurse, and at about the same time that she befriends a gay couple afflicted with the disease, she discovers her ability to let her mind flee her body and soar above the mundane world. One of the young gay men turns out to be the brother of her friend Helen's husband, and eventually all these characters--Diego included--are brought together into a community of hopefulness. This is a novel about individuals who are not blessed with ease and comfort but are trying to work out some sort of livable life, and it's also about the most important aspect of life, particularly in the face of losing it: the need for connectedness with family, friends, and loved ones. Despite the primacy of character over plot, the novel moves fluidly--and beautifully. Brad Hooper