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readouid's review
5.0
Munoz presents a dazzling Western version of Winesburg Ohio, giving us glimpses into the intimate lives of the residents in and around Gold Street in a slightly fictionalized version of Fresno. What I liked best about this book is that each of the stories in it ends with a question. There is no resolution here as we are just visitors in these characters' lives. We are left wondering about what happens to them next, perhaps with a sense of what comes next, always satisfied, but with a very realistic refusal to tie things up neatly with a bow. I also love the way this book explores gender roles, love, sexuality, and faith, showing their complex role in the lives of characters who are people first and Latinos second. There is no caricature here, and no character seems familiar from preexisting stereotypes or cultural impressions, or how Latinos and Chicanos are typically portrayed in the genre. A beautifully wrought, heartfelt novel that comes from truly loving and knowing a place and its people in all their messy, complicated, wondrous glory.
megatsunami's review
4.0
Well written. But too many stories about parents whose children die - I can't handle that.
lmurray74's review
3.0
This collection of interwoven short stories deals mostly with family ties and the heartache of love and loss. They didn't completely take me in but I felt the stories were a cloudy window into the lives of these Latino people living in and around Fresno, CA. I feel that it is probably an honest portrayal and is sensitively written.
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