Arboretum Library: Community Book Discussions from 2020

“This set of nine interconnected essays defies categorization in its exploration not only of queerness and disability but also of class, race, urban-rural divides, gender identity, sexual abuse, environmental destruction and the meaning of home. Place--and displacement--...Clare goes into detail about the realities of life in a small logging town, about the economics of clear-cutting forests and over-fishing salmon, about the destructive ideology of infinitely renewable resources that was taught to her as a child, the equally untenable romanticism of urban environmental activists, and the gains and losses that come with finding refuge in urban queer communities. These are not digressions. They are, as Clare puts it, ‘the connective tissue that brings the words queer, class, and exile together.’"-- Rachel Rosenbloom, The Women's Review of Books

First published in 1999, the groundbreaking Exile and Pride is essential to the history and future of disability politics. Eli Clare's revelatory writing about his experiences as a white disabled genderqueer activist/writer established him as one of the leading writers on the intersections of queerness and disability and permanently changed the landscape of disability politics and queer liberation. With a poet's devotion to truth and an activist's demand for justice, Clare deftly unspools the multiple histories from which our ever-evolving sense of self unfolds. His essays weave together memoir, history, and political thinking to explore meanings and experiences of home: home as place, community, bodies, identity, and activism. Here readers will find an intersectional framework for understanding how we actually live with the daily hydraulics of oppression, power, and resistance. At the root of Clare's exploration of environmental destruction and capitalism, sexuality and institutional violence, gender and the body politic, is a call for social justice movements that are truly accessible to everyone. With heart and hammer, Exile and Pride pries open a window onto a world where our whole selves, in all their complexity, can be realized, loved, and embraced.

Here are the questions discussed Wednesday, January 29, 2020.
• Did the combination of memoir and essay writing work? Yes, how? No, why?
• Is the writing poetic?
• What did you think about the use of footnotes?
• What did you think of the author's sources?
• Is this book of its time or do the ideas still resonate today?
• Did you believe the assertions?
• Which part of the book most resonated for you?
• What did you think about the way the book was presented in 3 parts?
• Icebreaker: Describe a physical characteristic that you loved from a landscape you have been exiled from.

“The [book] is delightful, original, moving and entirely persuasive in its shifts from sybaritic Los Angeles to the clenched world of a fraught family in Alliance, Nebraska in the dead of winter. In this sense, the novel is sternly within the American literary tradition, with the country itself as the significant backdrop directing lives and events. But Ann Patchett's touch is feather-light, as deft as the magician's repertoire which enlivens the narrative, so that the crucial determining factors of place and opportunity are simply there as contrasting climates behind the action.”— Penelope Lively, Independent

"A secretive magician's death becomes the catalyst for his partner's journey self-discovery in this "enchanting" book (San Francisco Chronicle) "that is something of a magic trick in itself" Newsweek).    
When Parsifal, a handsome and charming magician, dies suddenly, his widow Sabine--who was also his faithful assistant for twenty years--learns that the family he claimed to have lost in a tragic accident is very much alive and well. Sabine is left to unravel his secrets, and the journey she takes, from sunny Los Angeles to the bitter windswept plains of Nebraska, will work its own magic on her. Sabine's extraordinary tale, "with its big dreams, vast spaces, and disparate realities lying side by side" captures the hearts of its readers and "proves to be the perfect place for miraculous transformations" (The New Yorker). "

Here are the questions discussed on Wednesday, February 26, 2019:

• Did the author’s portrayal of Los Angeles resonate for you? How? Why? How not? Why not?
• How about Nebraska?
• What do you think about the way the author handled the violence?
• What did you think of the writing style?
• What is the author trying to tell us?
• What was your favorite thing about the book? Least favorite?
• What did the lack of chapters do for your reading of the book?
• Who was your favorite character? Why? Least favorite? Why?
• What do you think happened at the end?
• Any ambiguities we need to clear up?
• What did you think about the magic as a premise?
• What did you think about her portrayal of love and its ambiguities?
• Icebreaker: Describe the time in which you felt the coldest in your life.

“Three themes braid like a river's channels through Daniel's account of 134 days at Dutch Henry Homestead, ...in the Klamath Mountains of Southern Oregon. He writes of the place, and the creative ebb and flow of his work there. He writes of his father, labor organizer Franz Daniel. And, shadowed always by Franz's presence, he writes of his own coming-of-age in the 1960s...When Daniel writes that today's Rogue River, with its dwindling salmon and uneven water quality, ... one sees a nuanced grasp of the natural world shaped by the challenging currents of his childhood... This honest, satisfying memoir is a fine gift from a writer whose ghosts accepted his invitation to the madrone-shaded homestead above the Rogue.” Edward C. Wolf, The Oregonian

In November of 2000, after the Presidential election but before the final results were determined, John Daniel climbed into his pickup, drove to a cabin in the Red River Gorge, and quit civilization. The strictures were severe. No two-way human communications no radio, no music, no clocks or calendars, not even his cat. He would leave his wife behind and put himself into a cabin sure to be snowed-in just after his arrival, and he would live in complete isolation until spring. He was intent on not hearing a human voice other than his own for the next six months. Thoreau is never far away from ideas like these, and Thoreau's Journals had provided both instruction and inspiration. For in addition to the physical rigor of living in isolation, John Daniel intended to do spiritual work while living alone. A writer living alone is bound to write. And that he did. The result,The Rogue River Journal, is a remarkable memoir.

Here are the questions that were to be discussed on March 18, 2020.
Because the actual meeting together was cancelled, the questions were sent to the group to be answered in a long slow process of replies through email.

• Icebreaker: Describe a time you found solace in the outdoors.
• What do you think about braiding the three themes together, nature, dad, and the complications of writing? Did it work? Why? Why not?
• Why do you think he was compelled to tell his story?
• What do you think about the nature writing?
• Were you surprised at his wanting to document all the twists and turns of his life? Why? Why not?
• What particular aspect of the author’s life has lived on in your memory since you’ve finished the book? Why?
• What was your favorite thing about the book? Least favorite? Why>
• What do you like best about the parts about his father? Why?
• What are the overarching themes the author obsesses with?
• If you could change one aspect about this book as a pretend editor what would it be?
• Any ambiguities we need to clear up?

“It’s ... a “dreamoir,” which Ortiz defines as: “A literary adventure through the boundaries of memoir, where the self is viewed from a position anchored into the deepest recesses of the mind.” Though Bruja is not a traditionally plotted literary work, it contains themes and symbols — we are, after all, dwelling in a person’s subconscious. Maternal conflict, pregnancy and indecision over relationships and living arrangements recur. As do bags (the packing and unpacking of them); water, sometimes containing sharks and dolphins; and cats. Bruja stirs the instinct to draw these threads together…The dreams tantalize, and in this way mirror the most pervasive form of life writing the world has ever seen: social media — another medium in which Ortiz is adept.”— Ellie Robbins, Los Angeles Times

"In Bruja, Wendy C. Ortiz deftly navigates the land of dreams in what she calls a dreamoir. By telling us her dreams, by revealing her most unguarded and vulnerable self, Ortiz is, truly, offering readers the most intimate parts of herself--how she loves, how she wants, how she lives, who she is. Bruja is not just a book--it is an enigma and a wonder and utterly entrancing." --Roxane Gay, author of Bad Feminist

Here are the questions:
What did you think about the way she recorded her dreams?
· Is the author a believable narrator? Why? Why not?
· Who do you think the audience is for this book? What did this book do for you as a reader?
· What stayed in your mind after finishing this book?
· What did you think about the index?
· Why do you think the author decided to publish this book?
· What was your favorite thing about the book? Least favorite?
· What did you think about the cats in many entries?
· What did you think about all the repeated names referenced? Could you figure out who Michael is to this person? Why? Why not?
· If you could change one aspect about this book as a pretend editor what would it be?
· Any ambiguities we need to clear up?
· Favorite line, image or passage.
· Icebreaker: Describe a dream you’ve had recently or, perhaps, long ago?

“The [editors] are interested in the global city as the place where the Other goes to escape economic disaster zones caused by neoliberalism. Comprising two introductory essays and 16 nonfiction selections by Latinx authors writing from and about Los Angeles, this anthology attempts to break the Latinx canon as it has been envisioned (strictly literary) and made to fit into a mainstream mold, and it calls for the inclusion of nonfictional and cross-genre works...The selections--which span from the 18th century to the present and are a combination of previously unpublished work or writing not deemed literary--include cronicas, testimonios, memoirs, and letters from both well-known and obscure writers. A vital addition to Latinx studies.”— Y. Fuentes Choice

Latinx Writing Los Angeles offers a critical anthology of Los Angeles's most significant English-language and Spanish-language (in translation) nonfiction writing from the city's inception to the present. Contemporary Latinx authors, including three Pulitzer Prize winners and writers such as Harry Gamboa Jr., Guillermo Gómez-Peña, and Rubén Martínez, focus on the ways in which Latinx Los Angeles's nonfiction narratives record the progressive racialization and subalternization of Latinxs in the southwestern United States. While notions of racial memory, coloniality, biopolitics, internal colonialism, cultural assimilation, Mexican or pan-Latinx cultural nationalism, and transnationalism permeate this anthology, contributors advocate the idea of a contested modernity that refuses to accept mainstream cultural impositions, proposing instead alternative ways of knowing and understanding. Featuring a wide variety of voices as well as a diversity of subgenres, this collection is the first to illuminate divergent, hybrid Latinx histories and cultures. Redefining Los Angeles's literary history and providing a new model for English, Spanish, and Latinx studies, Latinx Writing Los Angeles is an essential contribution to southwestern and borderland studies.

Here are the questions developed for the discussion:
· Icebreaker: When was the moment or moments you realized Los Angeles and the movies about Los Angeles had an odd relationship?
· What surprised you about the book?
· What assertions do you agree with? Any you don’t agree with?
· Which reading did you like best? Why? Least? Why?
· What stayed in your mind after finishing this book?
· How did the introductory essays help with the readings? Hinder?
· Who is the audience for this book? Why?
· What did this book do to your vision of Los Angeles? Why?
· Is this book of a particular time? Is that time now? Why?
· What emotions did this book bring to your mind? Why?
· How did the notes and bibliography help this book? Why?
· If you could change one aspect about this book as a pretend editor what would it be?
· Any ambiguities we need to clear up?
What is your favorite line, passage, or images?

“This collaborative work is documentary poetry at its finest. The opening note explains ... Attendance, “was born from Rocio’s description of going outside every morning to check on everything that grows in her backyard. Together we decided that one of us would attend to the flora and one of us would attend to the fauna...” The work comes in at over 200 pages mixing poems with reflections on natural locations like La Tuna Canyon, Altadena, the Bolsa Chica Wetlands, Echo Park Lake to dozens of other sites. In addition to geographic musings, there are words on hawks, ravens, species of trees, their families and politics. This is truly a unique book. — Mike Sonksen, KCET

ATTENDANCE trains your attention on plants and animals until you can't stop noticing them. It's a way of moving through the natural world--which turns out to include the whole world. An almanac, a logbook, a devotional, a witness statement, poetry. A documentary not in the sense of capturing but in the sense of being a creature paying attention to the world we already live in. It's a hybrid text: One year of two people reaching their arms across styles and genres. At times notes, at times lists, or run-on sentences, or poems, or things that want to be poems, but always plants, and always animals. The words are offered up with no correction or with the revision exposed. This is writing that includes where it comes from or writing that painfully doesn't become. We hold so many questions about love and attention and violence. "ATTENDANCE is a meditation, an ushering-in of the kind of mindfulness that life deserves. One that leaves readers like me nodding and saying yes to lines like these: 'Just try to want different things' and 'You can do anything you want with me as long as you do it slowly first.' Carlos and Kaminer are power, and this book is plain gorgeous."--Natashia Deón "I expected to be moved by this collaborative work from Rachel McLeod Kaminer and Rocío Carlos--they are two distinct and beautiful poets after all. But what I didn't expect from ATTENDANCE is the way it brought the life around me to life. How the birds and the trees and the landscape began to move in ways I hadn't noticed before, how my skin began to feel enveloped by the details of the day. Great art has always made me know that I belonged in the world, that I wasn't wandering through it alone. And ATTENDANCE, as much as any recent book, has reminded me of this truth."--Chiwan Choi

Here are the questions discussed June 24, 2020
• Icebreaker: What’s your favorite plant and/or animal (generally or specifically) that you keep attendance on?
• What your favorite poem, note, line, passage or image in the book? Please read it to us.
• What did you think of the concept and execution of the concept of the book?
• What did you think about the melding of the two authors works?
o Did you try to figure out whose work was whose? If so, why do you think you did that? Did you stop later in the process of reading? Why/Why not?
• How did the interview at the end help with readings the book? Hinder?
• What did you think about the writing style?
• Did you understand what was happening in the book? Why? Why not?
o Does that matter? Why? Why not?
• What did this book do to your vision of Los Angeles? Why?
• What emotions did this book bring to your mind? Why?
• If you could change one aspect about this book as a pretend editor what would it be?
• Any ambiguities we need to clear up?

... Rodoreda writes a slow burn towards catastrophe. Rodoreda, who is considered one of the most important Catalan writers of the 20th century, wrote often [...] in the years before and after the Spanish Civil War[...] She wrote with incredible deftness about the intimate domestic moments that constitute the majority of life[...]almost nothing happens on the page — much is hinted at, not a lot is said, and it’s the reader’s job (or privilege) to unspool her implications.—Eva Dunsky, Reading in Translation

"Rodoreda has bedazzled me by the sensuality with which she reveals things within the atmosphere of her novels."--Gabriel García Márquez

The novel that defined Mercè Rodoreda's most prolific period is finally available in English for the first time. Set in 1920s Spain,Garden by the Sea takes place over six summers at a villa by the sea inhabited by a young couple and their beautiful, rich, joyous friends. They swim, drink, tease each other, and fully enjoy themselves. All the while, the guests are observed by the villa's gardener, a widower who's been tending the garden for several decades. As the true protagonist of the novel, we get to see the dissolution of these magical summers through his eyes, as a sense of darkness and ending creeps in, precipitated by the construction of a new, larger, more glamorous villa next door. Considered by many to be one of the greatest writers of the twentieth century, Rodoreda has captivated readers for decades with her exacting descriptions of life--and nature--in post-war Spain, and this novel will further her reputation and fill in an important piece of her oeuvre.

Here are the questions discussed on Wednesday, July 29, 2020 in a virtual format.

• Icebreaker: What is your favorite garden plant? And why?
• What did you think about the writing style and point of view and why?
• What do you think this story is about? Why? What are some examples of that?
• Could you imagine the garden and landscape? Why? Why not? Were there any aspects of that that didn’t make sense to you?
• What did you think of the translation? Why?
• What parts of this book seem particularly of its time? What did you think about the portrayal of the “class” differences?
• Why do you think this book got “wonderful” reviews?
• Who was your favorite character? Least favorite? Why? What did you think about the description of the parents and their relationship?
• How does this book stand up to the lens of corona virus and our other current troubles?
• If you could change one aspect about this book as a pretend editor what would it be?
• Any ambiguities we need to clear up?
• Favorite line, image, or passage?

Here are a few more questions proposed by Janet Evans, my colleague from the McLean Library and Archives at the Pennsylvania Horticultural Society.
• The domestics seemed to live vicariously through their employers. Why was that?
• What were the central relationships in the story?
• What do you make of the gardener? How would you describe him? Is he a reliable narrator? Why?/Why not?

“Susan A. Phillips’s wonderfully researched book is truly unique in the study of graffiti. Not only has she examined the cultural origins of mark-making, but she also re-defines the geographical narrative, stealing the crown from New York and placing it on the head of the West Coast as the cultural epicenter of the birth of American graffiti.”—Aaron Rose, author of Beautiful Losers.

A sweeping history of Los Angeles told through the lens of the many marginalized groups--from hobos to taggers--that have used the city's walls as a channel for communication Graffiti written in storm drain tunnels, on neighborhood walls, and under bridges tells an underground and, until now, untold history of Los Angeles. Drawing on extensive research within the city's urban landscape, Susan A. Phillips traces the hidden language of marginalized groups over the past century--from the early twentieth-century markings of hobos, soldiers, and Japanese internees to the later inscriptions of surfers, cholos, and punks. Whether describing daredevil kids, bored workers, or clandestine lovers, Phillips profiles the experiences of people who remain underrepresented in conventional histories, revealing the powerful role of graffiti as a venue for cultural expression. Graffiti aficionados might be surprised to learn that the earliest documented graffiti bubble letters appear not in 1970s New York but in 1920s Los Angeles. Or that the negative letterforms first carved at the turn of the century are still spray painted on walls today. With discussions of characters like Leon Ray Livingston (a.k.a. "A-No. 1"), credited with consolidating the entire system of hobo communication in the 1910s, and Kathy Zuckerman, better known as the surf icon "Gidget," this lavishly illustrated book tells stories of small moments that collectively build into broad statements about power, memory, landscape, and history itself.

Here are the questions discussed on Wednesday, August 26, 2020.

• Icebreaker: What is your favorite graffiti you remember seeing? And why? And where was it (i.e. what kind of context)?
• Did this book change your view of graffiti? Why? Why not?
• Did this book change your view of private property? Why? Why not?
• Did this book change your view of social justice? Why? Why not?
• What did you think about the writing style and point of view and why?
• Could you follow her reasoning in the chapters? Why? Why not? What are your specific examples?
• What was your favorite chapter? Why?
• Did it work to have her insert herself so much into the text? Why? Why not?
• How did the arrangement of the chapters work? Was there a through line?
• What was a new fact you learned about the Los Angeles landscape?
• If you could change one aspect about this book as a pretend editor what would it be?
• Any ambiguities we need to clear up?
• Any other questions you have for the group?
• Favorite line, image, or passage?

“Traveling ‘from one end of California to the other, from drought to flood to wildfire to mudslide,’ he chronicles in absorbing detail the transformation of the state’s Central Valley from modest seasonal farms to huge agribusinesses exporting pistachios, almonds, mandarins, and pomegranates. Drawing on historical sources and nearly 300 interviews, Arax reveals the consequences to land and wildlife of generations of landowners who have defiantly dug, dammed, and diverted California’s waters. .”— Kirkus Reviews

A vivid, searching journey into California's capture of water and soil--the epic story of a people's defiance of nature and the wonders, and ruin, it has wrought Mark Arax is from a family of Central Valley farmers, a writer with deep ties to the land who has watched the battles over water intensify even as California lurches from drought to flood and back again. In The Dreamt Land, he travels the state to explore the one-of-a-kind distribution system, built in the 1940s, '50s and '60s, that is straining to keep up with California's relentless growth. The Dreamt Land weaves reportage, history and memoir to confront the "Golden State" myth in riveting fashion. No other chronicler of the West has so deeply delved into the empires of agriculture that drink so much of the water. The nation's biggest farmers--the nut king, grape king and citrus queen--tell their story here for the first time. Arax, the native son, is persistent and tough as he treks from desert to delta, mountain to valley. What he finds is hard earned, awe-inspiring, tragic and revelatory. In the end, his compassion for the land becomes an elegy to the dream that created California and now threatens to undo it.

Here are the questions discussed, Wednesday, September 30, 2020:

• Icebreaker: What is your favorite fruit? And why? And/Or what is your favorite place in the San Joaquin Valley and why?
• Did the way he wrote the history makes you feel comfortable with his facts? Why?
• What did you think about the writing style and point of view and why?
• Why do you think he wrote this book?
• Is this a call to action? Why/Why not? Do you think this book will change anything in the valley? Why?/Why not?
• Did he seem to avoid subjects about the farms? If so, which ones? What do you think his reasoning for that was?
• Did it work to have him insert himself so much into the text? Why? Why not?
• How did the arrangement of the chapters work? Was there a through line? Is the book too long, too short or, just right? Why?
• What was a new fact you learned about the San Joaquin Valley?
• If you could change one aspect about this book as a pretend editor what would it be?
• Any ambiguities we need to clear up?
• Any other questions you have for the group?
• Favorite line, image, or passage?

“To people (including me) who have visited, Marfa is magical. At its center is [Donald] Judd's work, much of it created as site-specific installations there. Kathleen Shafer tells Judd's story, and constellating stories about art, history, landscape, weather, the mysterious Marfa lights, economics, sociology and, of course, real estate. Her book is an absorbing analysis of, and a love letter to, a community she has visited for the past six years. In mostly serviceable... prose, she tells how Marfa ... became a "brand" as well as a mecca for art lovers."—Willard Spiegelman Wall Street Journal

A small town in the vast desert of West Texas, Marfa attracts visitors from around the world to its art foundations and galleries, film and music festivals, and design and architecture symposiums. While newcomers sometimes see it as "another Santa Fe," long-time residents often take a bemused, even disapproving attitude toward the changes that Marfa has undergone since artist Donald Judd came to town in the 1970s and began creating spaces for his own and other artists' work. They remember when ranching and the military formed the basis of the town's economy, even as they acknowledge that tourist dollars are now essential to Marfa's sustainability Marfa tells an engaging story of how this isolated place became a beacon in the art world, like the famous Marfa Lights that draw curious spectators into the West Texas night. As Kathleen Shafer delves into the town's early history, the impact of Donald Judd, the expansion of arts programming, and the increase in tourism, she unlocks the complex interplay between the particularities of the place, the forces of commerce and growth, the textures of local culture and tradition, and the transformative role of artists and creative work. Bookending her story between two iconic artworks--the whimsical Prada Marfa and the crass Playboy Marfa--Shafer illuminates the shifting cultural landscape of Marfa, showing why this place has become a mecca for so many and how the influx of newcomers has transformed its character.

Here are the questions discussed October 28, 2020:

• Icebreaker: Tell us about a visit to what you later realized was primarily a tourist destination? How did that affect your visit?
• Did this book help you understand something new? What was it? Why?
• What did you think about the writing style and point of view and why? Was she successful in understanding the town?
• Why do you think the author wrote this book? Did you figure out why she had some relationship to the town? Can you give examples of that relationship?
• Did the illustrations work? Why? Why not?
• Who is the audience for this book? Why?
• Having read this book, is Marfa a town you would like to visit? Why? Why not?
• Did her explanation of why she left out how the Hispanic demographic affected the town make sense to you? Should she have tried harder? Why? Why not? What could she have done to solve this challenge?
• What is the best part of the book? Why?
• Anything you would change as a pretend editor?
• Any ambiguities we need to clear up?
• Any other questions you have for the group?
• Favorite line, image, or passage?

“Alfredo Véa, Jr. has written such a terrific novel about the poor, the disenfranchised & the forgotten that it doesn’t make you feel pity at all...It’s beautifully written; it’s thematically vital for our times. It addresses questions larger than the mundane world we usually live in. Vea writes about human diversity beautifully, making light of stereotypes, turning them over in his hands as if they were curious pebbles. If you have a community with 20 races ... then not to give each race its proper due would be worse than being racist...Véa doesn’t romanticize poverty. But he allows his fictional grandpa to point out that having yourself & the horizon is more than enough for any human being.”—Carolyn See, Los Angeles Times

"Buckeye Road wasn't much of a town, just a place where a pocked and pitted road met an invisible street....It was less that unincorporated, it was unknown..." Yet it is here in the desert outside the Phoenix city limits that Alfredo Véa, Jr., finds a world of marvels spilling out of the adobe homes, tar-paper shacks, rusted Cadillacs, and battered trailers that are otherwise known as "Buckeye." Three thousand years of history and the myths of many cultures, as well as the fates of a dozen unforgettable characters, will all collide one hot summer in 1958; and the events played out on Buckeye Road will amount to nothing less than a new and life-affirming vision of the American Southwest...and of America itself. The vivid symbol of Buckeye Road is La Maravilla--the blanket of marigolds laid upon graves in Mexican cemeteries, and the mythical dog, sacred to the Aztecs, who returns from the under-world to lead his master to Mictlan, the land of the dead. La Maravilla is the embodiment of belonging to two worlds, and of being torn between the love and fear of both. It is the condition and mystery borne by all who inhabit this American outback--whether they are Blacks, Chicanos, Asians, Native Americans, Mexicans, European immigrants, or Anglo misfits. For Beto, the young boy at the center of this magnificent story, it is the dilemma that he must somehow resolve and emerge from whole. For Beto has no parents to guide him--his mother has fled the "old ways" of her Mexican family for a bright new American life beyond the desert sunset in California, where "Indians are history and Sunday is for football, not church!" But in her place, and more than filling it, is Beto's aristocratic Spanish grandmother, a Catholic curandera with a passion for the music of Duke Ellington. He also has his grandfather, a Yaqui Indian whose spirit soars above a desert without frontiers. With this extraordinary first novel, Alfredo Véa, Jr., takes his place in the first rank of American authors.

Here are the questions discussed November 18, 2020:
• Icebreaker: If there is an immigration story in your family heritage what is it? Briefly. And/or where is the place you have lived the longest and how long have you lived there?
• The cover blurb of the book I read from Carolyn See says “I can’t get it out of my mind.” Was that true for you? If yes, what specifically? If no, why not?
• What did you think about the writing style and point of view and why?
• Does this book written in 1993 still hold up today? What part? Why? If no, what part? Why?
• Who is your favorite character? Why?
• This story has magical realism like many other Latin American novels and stories? How did it work for you this time, i.e., how were you able to integrate it into your understanding of the story?
• How did the author do with portraying the child narrator and his poverty?
• What was your favorite image of the Phoenix area?
• Why do you think Josephina left the adobe?
• If you could change one aspect about this book as a pretend editor what would it be?
• Any ambiguities we need to clear up?
• Any other questions you have for the group?
• Favorite line, image, or passage?

“The book was first published in 1976...Chronicle Books reissued a new and selected edition ... Here a man in his sixties revisits his childhood and the early poetics that put him on the map as a pioneer in Chicano poetry. ...Careful brushstrokes... refresh the original book that describes both the hardships and joys of growing up in the central valley....The poet has an impeccable memory for capturing the music and sounds of his childhood. The language of the poems remains rich and timeless in phrases such as the days shut like a suitcase, plastic bags that ghost in the wind, and tomatoes hanging/Like small red globes.—Melinda Palacio, La Bloga

A timely new edition of a pioneering work in Latino literature, National Book Award nominee Gary Soto's first collection (originally published in 1977) draws on California's fertile San Joaquin Valley, the people, the place, and the hard agricultural work done there by immigrants. In these poems, joy and anger, violence and hope are placed in both the metaphorical and very real circumstances of the Valley. Rooted in personal experiences--of the poet as a young man, his friends, family, and neighbors--the poems are spare but expansive, with Soto's voice as important as ever. This welcome new edition has been expanded with a crucial selection of complementary poems (some previously unpublished) and a new introduction by the author.

Here is what the group discussed on December 16, 2020:
Icebreaker questions: Tell us about a time you had to deal or were entranced, enthralled, etc., by fog. And/Or What is your earliest memory?

After the icebreaker the group made at least a two or three trips around the “room” with each of us reading our favorites from the book. There was some pondering about meaning and appreciation of words and images.