Scan barcode
thatbookishwriter's review against another edition
challenging
dark
emotional
hopeful
reflective
medium-paced
3.0
stephanieamon's review
5.0
This five-star collection of 13 linked stories is rich in themes: aging, marriage and sex, death, class mobility, and ethnicity and xenophobia. Characters reappear from story to story and gain nuance as we see their encounters and relationships. Troncoso brings readers deep into his characters’ minds and bodies, and I found it easy to form empathetic connections with them. These characters felt human—complex, diverse, and dignified.
I was especially struck by the quality of the sex writing, of which there is a lot in this book. It’s both explicit and emotionally sophisticated. I enjoyed the writing overall, and Troncoso’s well-crafted sentences and paragraphs amount to a masterful prose style. The point of view dips into stream-of-consciousness several times, which engrossed me in the characters’ inner conflicts while remaining readable.
I loved this book and will definitely reread it. Longtime readers of Troncoso’s will recognize the blazing intelligence and compassion of his earlier works and appreciate the deepening of his sensibility. In my opinion, A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son is high-quality literary fiction that deserves a wide audience.
A couple interesting Q&As with the author:
https://madam-mayo.com/q-a-sergio-troncoso-author-of-a-peculiar-kind-of-immigrants-son-on-reading-as-if-your-life-depended-on-it-emily-dickenson-the-digital-revolution-and-the-texas-institute-of-letters/
http://deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com/2019/10/q-with-sergio-troncoso.html
I was especially struck by the quality of the sex writing, of which there is a lot in this book. It’s both explicit and emotionally sophisticated. I enjoyed the writing overall, and Troncoso’s well-crafted sentences and paragraphs amount to a masterful prose style. The point of view dips into stream-of-consciousness several times, which engrossed me in the characters’ inner conflicts while remaining readable.
I loved this book and will definitely reread it. Longtime readers of Troncoso’s will recognize the blazing intelligence and compassion of his earlier works and appreciate the deepening of his sensibility. In my opinion, A Peculiar Kind of Immigrant’s Son is high-quality literary fiction that deserves a wide audience.
A couple interesting Q&As with the author:
https://madam-mayo.com/q-a-sergio-troncoso-author-of-a-peculiar-kind-of-immigrants-son-on-reading-as-if-your-life-depended-on-it-emily-dickenson-the-digital-revolution-and-the-texas-institute-of-letters/
http://deborahkalbbooks.blogspot.com/2019/10/q-with-sergio-troncoso.html
More...