The Madonnas of Echo Park

Praise for
The Madonnas of Echo Park

Pick of the Week,
The Boston Globe

“This first novel tells the intertwining stories of three Mexican-American families in the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles, from the 1980s to today. … As the narrators pass the story backward and forward in time, the characters unknowingly bounce off one another like particles in the Large Hadron Collider.”

—
The New York Times

“A revelation … the summer's most original read … extraordinary. … The novel is richly detailed, offering varying perspectives that collide into a singular narrative from an evolving neighborhood in the shadow of downtown L.A. (Think Gabriel García Márquez fused with Junot Díaz.) … The immigrant experience may very well be the defining narrative of the United States in the 21st century. When juxtaposed against its literary rival, the self-confession, the results can be breathtaking as exhibited by Skyhorse's startling author's note at the start of the book. … Powerful.”

—
Examiner.com

“Gritty … a bittersweet love letter to the neighborhood [of Echo Park].”

—
Los Angeles
magazine

“A literary glimpse into the often unseen world of Mexican Americans trying to make it as Americans.”

—
USA Today

“The work of a significant new voice, full and rich and richly subtle… . ‘Rules of the Road' is filled with so much texture and detail and humanity and the kind of weirdness that seems utterly true and believable [and] the rest of the [book is] filled with the same qualities. … Also, for a man, Skyhorse has an amazing eye and ear for the way women talk, look, behave—and think and feel… . Brando Skyhorse's first book is the real deal.”

—Chauncey Mabe,
Open Page,
Florida Center for the Literary Arts

“Skyhorse's control and capability as a storyteller make the story clear, compelling, and meaningful. … Above all,
The Madonnas of Echo Park
is about people trying to understand why their world is changing… . There is much to marvel at, beginning with Skyhorse's excellent writing. … Its structure, repeated descriptions, interlocked plot elements, even that metafictional “Author's Note,” all work to do the most important thing fiction can do: create a complex world in which readers can practice empathy.”

—
The Rumpus

“Wonderful … moving, lyrical … a complex, multifaceted portrait of the community [of Echo Park].”

—
Washington City Paper

“I really loved this book. Skyhorse successfully finds the voice of such vastly different people and it is all brought together with lyrical beauty, even when he writes about the gritty side of life.”

—
Latina-ish

“Social fiction meant to shine a light on the lives of Mexican immigrants and illegals. … The story is bright with description, and dialogue so well-written you can hear it.”

—
Winnipeg Free Press

“Told in a series of vignettes so strong and well-written they could be stand-alone stories,
The Madonnas of Echo Park
centers around the life of one young woman, Aurora Esperanza, as told by the men and women of her east L.A. community. It addresses the issues of immigration and assimilation, of being Mexican and American, and of staying true to who you are and where you come from. Skyhorse has written such a beautiful, poignant and well-crafted novel that I feel compelled to encourage everyone to pick it up and immerse themselves in Echo Park.”

—
Inkwood Books Newsletter

“Skyhorse gives life to people on the peripheries of Los Angeles who are often invisible.”

—
New York Journal of Books

“Skyhorse devotes a chapter each to a panoply of quirky characters who people the streets, all connecting to a girl caught in the gang wars that ravage the area.”

—
Asbury Park Press

“Brilliant. Go buy this book right now.”

—
Sewtransformed.blogspot.com

“To embrace a community, to capture its fabric, to syncopate its rhythms, lives, views and experiences is a difficult feat. But Brando Skyhorse manages to do just that with his breathtaking and, at times, soul-churning novel. … Skyhorse [finds] breadth and diversity in Echo Park. … Stories zigzag through the book, introducing lives unique and full, bisecting one another at times, standing at solitary edges at others. … [W]e are carried away by this intricately crafted tale. Taken together, the tales spin around the axis of a few streets yet splinter off into infinite dimensions.”

—
Chattanooga Times Free Press

“Vivid… . These are the people we pass every day and never give much thought. Now Skyhorse demands our attention as he deftly humanizes their stories. … Eye-opening and haunting, Skyhorse's novel will jolt readers out of their complacence.”

—
Booklist

“Vivid. … Skyhorse excels at building a vibrant community and presenting several perspectives on what it means to be Mexican in America, from those who wonder ‘how can you lose something that never belonged to you?' to those who miraculously find it.”

—
Publishers Weekly

“First-time novelist Skyhorse offers a poignant yet unsentimental homage to Echo Park, a working-class neighborhood in east Los Angeles where everyone struggled to blend in with American society but remains tied to the traditions of Mexico. … Essential for fans of Sherman Alexie or Sandra Cisneros but with universal appeal for readers who favor in-depth character-centered stories, this is enthusiastically recommended.”

—
Library Journal
(starred review)

“Brando Skyhorse brings a chronically invisible community to sizzling, beguiling life. . . . With this debut novel, Skyhorse has earned comparison to Sherman Alexie, Junot Diaz and Sandra Cisneros. . . . And like those writers, there's little danger Skyhorse will be pigeonholed as an ethnic writer: his work is simply too good. . . . In
The Madonnas of Echo Park
, Skyhorse claims the disparate elements of his life and spins them into gold.”

—
The Oregonian

“There are a few reasons you should read Brando Skyhorse's
The Madonnas of Echo Park
this year … a fresh … and authentic … writer to shake … controversy through the discerning scrim of first-person fiction. … If timeliness and social relevance don't sell you on the book, then read it for its beautifully imperfect characters, the wise certainty of its prose, its satisfying emotional heft—the basic things we hope for when we pick up a novel … elegantly written. … The book cleverly expresses the tangled nature of multicultural identity and the physical geography of off-the-grid Echo Park. … The thing about tortuous roads and confusing intersections is that we often find ourselves returning to the place where we started, even when we think we've left it forever. And while many of us might see this as a lack of progress or hapless water-treading, Skyhorse celebrates it as a kind of hopeful recovery.”

—
The Brooklyn Rail

“[A] potential best-seller. … [Skyhorse] has a way with fiction, as he demonstrates in this lovely debut novel about Mexican-Americans in LA. The engaging storytelling, informed by a keen understanding of contemporary immigrant life, is reminiscent of Junot Díaz and Chang Rae-Lee.”

—
Vanity Fair

“Brando Skyhorse writes with great compassion and wit (and a touch of magic) about the lives of people who are often treated as if they are invisible. The stories that make up this novel weave together to create a complex and vivid portrait of a Los Angeles we seldom see in literature or film.
The
Madonnas of Echo Park
is a memorable literary debut.”

—Dan Chaon, author of
Await Your Reply

“In its depiction of what amounts to a parallel social universe
The Madonnas of Echo Park
provides a master class in nonlinear narrative, written with imaginative generosity and emotional precision, poignant, brutal, and refreshingly unsentimental. Brando Skyhorse has what can't be faked: talent. His book is an understated triumph.”

—Glen Duncan, author of
Death of an Ordinary Man
and
I, Lucifer

“In this gorgeous and suspenseful book, the admirably talented Brando Skyhorse takes his readers to a kingdom that he has made very much his own—Echo Park, California. I loved reading about his richly imagined characters, both Mexican and American, and how their lives intersect with our much more familiar versions of Los Angeles.”

—Margot Livesey, author of
The House on Fortune Street
and
Eva Moves the Furniture

Free Press
A Division of Simon & Schuster, Inc.
1230 Avenue of the Americas
New York, NY 10020
www.SimonandSchuster.com

This book is a work of fiction. Names, characters, places, and incidents
either are products of the author's imagination or are used fictitiously.
Any resemblance to actual events or locales or persons, living or dead,
is entirely coincidental.

Copyright © 2010 by Brando Skyhorse
All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or
portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address
Free Press Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas,
New York, NY 10020

First Free Press trade paperback edition February 2011
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The Library of Congress has cataloged the hardcover edition as follows:
Skyhorse, Brando.
The Madonnas of Echo Park : a novel / Brando Skyhorse.
p. cm.
1. Mexican Americans—Fiction. 2. Echo Park (Los Angeles, Calif.)—
Fiction. 3. Domestic fiction. I. Title.
PS3619.K947A44 2010
813'.6-dc22 2009034403
ISBN 978-1-4391-7080-9
ISBN 978-1-4391-7084-7 (pbk)
ISBN 978-1-4391-7085-4 (ebook)