The Scoundrel and the Optimist
Small and frail, 13-year-old Edmund is the only one in his family who escapes the brutal violence of his drunken father, Filastro. One by one, Edmund sees his older brothers and sisters leave their Mexican village to cross the border to the U.S.; only his depressed mother stays trapped. Edmund has a crush on Ingrid, and he takes advice from his friend and half brother, club-footed Jorge, the child of Filastro and his mother’s sister. Then Filastro is beaten unconscious in a gangster-police corruption melee, and after weeks of lying unconscious, he wakes up a different person. But only Edmund nurses him, believes in the transformation, and teaches his father about love. Beyond message, the boy’s innocent viewpoint provides the powerful narrative hook in this affecting first novel. Edmund’s voice is comic in its naïveté (what does it mean that his sister missed her period?), but it also brings out both the violent horror lurking in macho posturing and the difficulty of crossing borders to find family and forgiveness. --Hazel Rochman--This text refers to theHardcoveredition.