Drowning Tucson
Morales's sometimes powerful but disappointing debut portrays Tucson as a crumbling city teetering on the edge of disaster, where violence triumphs over every character and even the most hopeful of circumstances. The streets are run by the Latin Kings gang; their fates, like nearly all of Morales's characters, are sealed at birth. Among the expansive milieu, there's Jaime, a straitlaced teenager seeking revenge for the murder of his boyfriend; Mr. Gutierrez, a kindhearted old man overwhelmed with grief; Peanut, a gang member who wants a better life for his younger sister; and the women of Tucson, who seem to have little choice outside of becoming rape victims or prostitutes. Unfortunately, Morales's willingness to fall into scenes of graphic violence—not only to drive his point home, but for shock value and, often, to stand in for more original or artful prose—becomes woefully predictable. For a novel that wishes so earnestly for a better future for its downtrodden characters, it does everything in its power to obliterate those hopes in the reader.(May)Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved.