The Madonnas of Echo Park (30 page)

For years afterward I knew when we looked at that picture, my mother and I saw different things, though we never talked about it. It was so crucial to the police that they figure out whether I was standing or falling (my mom says white people always have to know all the details), and that photo was analyzed by almost everyone in the city to figure out what the real answer was. I don't remember whether I was rising or falling, but that didn't matter. I was in motion, and I lived. What I saw in that photo was my mother staring in disbelief that my body had the audacity to rise up to her height. She wasn't
looking at my head and my mouth. Where the trouble began, she liked to say. What she saw was a tough-looking girl in baggy clothes, trying to pretend I didn't have a body that was starting to resemble a woman's and a face that resembled her own. I'm my own way, I liked to say then. I don't say that much anymore.

The one difference between an accident of chance and a miracle is faith. The truth is that everyone who looks at that photo sees what they want to see, in much the same way everyone looks at an oil stain under a freeway overpass and sees what they want to see, be it a puddle of ooze or the Virgin Mary. People claimed to see the Virgin Mary in our photo, standing between me and my mother. For years I thought back to that moment and realized that, if I'd listened to my mother, I'd be dead. That gave me a reason to ignore everything she said, including her good advice. But I realize two things died that day: Alma, and my connection with my mother. I have waited years to reestablish that connection, to feel for her the way I used to when I hugged her close to breathe in her perfumed neck, or when I spotted her returning from the supermarket from my bedroom window and ran down the street to carry as many grocery bags as I could loop around my fingers, or the way I clutched her waist at the sight of a strange dog. The Lord had, in this absurd way, granted my wish to get back my mother's dog. Why couldn't he give me my love for my mother back, too?

Elysian Park sits underneath Dodger Stadium, the former home of Chavez Ravine, and of Aurora Salazar, the last woman to be taken from the land that once was hers. Heading down Scott Avenue to Elysian Park Drive, Blackjack and I walk amid verdant meadows, plump trees, picnic tables, and large patches of grass rolling around the hills in sea green waves. We sidle up to a pickup baseball game and lie behind the backstop on a splintered bench. Blackjack's itching to chase the ball each time it's hit, but he stays by my side.

A bright yellow Frisbee sails over me, as if suspended from strings, a lost UFO from one of those old black-and-white sci-fi movies I
loved watching on Saturday mornings in my pajamas. Blackjack takes off and catches the wayward satellite before it slams into a steel-drum trash can. Racing back, he leaps right past me and returns the Frisbee to my mother.

She walks over, holding the Frisbee out to me. Our fingers interlace and lock in the exchange. She lets them linger there, then pulls the Frisbee away. The whip-snatch motion sends both our hands upward, sailing the disk in a clear, uninterrupted trajectory. I watch Blackjack take off in haste as it soars high above the ground, where the ghosts of Chavez Ravine walk side by side with the souls of the bereaved, through the sun-dappled leaves of the walnut trees, across the thickets of dusty chaparral, down a plain dirt road lined with Mexican fan palms, to an amaranthine valley of orange groves that bloom from here to the ocean, a land rich with roots that grow, thrive, burn, are razed, heal, then grow again, deeper and stronger than before.

This is the land we dream of, the land that belongs to us again.

Teachers—Howard J. Shorr, Jon Reider, John L'Heureux,
Susan Weinberg, Angela Hassall,
Judith Grossman, Wilton Barnhardt, Geoffrey Wolff, Nick Lyons, Randall Sullivan, William J. Bernstein, Margot Livesey

& every author it was my privilege to work with in publishing.

Family—Amy Hundley, Sophoat Lim, Jeff Lytle, Daniel Maurer,

John Reed, Jason Wishnow

For “yes”—Susan Golomb

For the golden opportunity—Amber Qureshi, Martha Levin,

Dominick Anfuso, & everyone at Free Press

Wherever you are—Frank Zamora

For turning over a new leaf—Alaina Sudeith

“Pattie Boyd”—Kitt Allan, who's on every page

Thank you for spending some time in Echo Park.

Born and raised in Echo Park, California, Brando Skyhorse is a graduate of Stanford University and the MFA Writers' Workshop program at UC Irvine. For the past ten years he has worked in New York as a book editor. He's currently writing a memoir about growing up with five stepfathers.

ORDER YOUR COPY TODAY!

The Madonnas of Echo Park

A Novel

Brando Skyhorse

Reading Group Guide

ABOUT THIS GUIDE

The following reading group guide is intended to help you find interesting and rewarding approaches to your reading of
The Madonnas of Echo Park
. We hope these enhance your enjoyment and appreciation of the book. For a complete listing of reading group guides from Simon & Schuster, visit
BookClubReader.com.

 

SUMMARY

The Madonnas of Echo Park
follows the lives of Mexican Americans in the shifting landscape of Los Angeles's Echo Park neighborhood, highlighting the intersections and collisions of American and Mexican culture. Felicia, a housekeeper, and her daughter, Aurora, weave in and out of each others' lives, struggling to find a common ground on which to relate. Aurora's estranged father, Hector, finds himself a witness to a murder and must choose between deportation and complicity. Aurora's former classmates Duchess and Angie, steeped in American culture, drift apart as they choose different paths in life, each looking for a place to fit in. Felicia's aging mother, Beatriz, who gave Felicia up as a baby, is torn between guilt and nostalgia and her own driving self-interest. As their lives tangle together and bounce apart, each is given the opportunity to decide what is truly important to them.

 

QUESTIONS FOR DISCUSSION

1. The first chapter of
The Madonnas of Echo Park
is actually a fictional Author's Note, telling the story of the real Aurora Esperanza and the inspiration for the novel. Did you read the Author's Note before starting the novel? Did you realize it was fictional? Do you prefer to know an author's thoughts about their book before you start, or formulate your own thoughts about it first?

2. The reporters that cover the drive-by shooting raise questions about the positioning that saved Aurora and placed Alma Guerrero in the path of the bullet. Felicia seems doubtful herself about what actually happened during the shooting. Was it just a mother-daughter spat, or did survival instincts kick in and shape the incident?

3. “Tall poppy syndrome” or “crab mentality” is often pointed out by observers of minority cultures, when a member of the community achieves, or has goals, outside of the average and is dragged down or derided by others. Do you see this at work in any of the characters' lives?

4. The incident on Efren Mendoza's bus highlights the racial tensions simmering below the surface of everyday L.A. Was the bus driver trying to manage an unmanageable situation or acting out of his own prejudices?

5. Aurora, speaking of her obsession with Morrissey, says, “You can't help who, or what, you love.” Is she speaking solely about music, or is there a broader context for her statement? Do you agree with her?

6. Felicia works for wealthy white people cleaning their homes; Hector and Diego do construction work off the books. Are these genuine opportunities, or are they examples of immigrants being taken advantage of?

7. Beatriz (Felicia's mother, Aurora's grandmother) believes she has been visited by Our Lady of Guadalupe at a bus stop on Sunset Boulevard. Do you believe in religious visions, or is this simply a hallucination brought on by age and guilt?

8. Juan's father, Manny, is an ex-gangster. What purpose do gangs serve for their neighborhoods? Are they the only option available for many teens, or are they an actual choice on the part of their members? Can people truly change after being involved in that kind of violence?

9. Felicia knows her employers as Rick and Mrs. Calhoun, despite the fact that she becomes much closer to Mrs. Calhoun than to Rick. Is the way she refers to them indicative of their relationships? Why doesn't it change with the changing circumstances?

10. Are the Calhouns camouflaging their dysfunction with charitable acts, or are they genuinely sympathetic to Felicia? Is this an accurate portrait of their society/demographic? Are the Calhouns' dark secrets the exception or the rule?

11. Which character was your favorite, and which was your least favorite? Which one did you identify with the most?

12.
The Madonnas of Echo Park
has many points of view and many connections that are often revealed slowly. Did the structure of the novel enhance or detract from the reading experience? Would you change it? If so, how?

 

TIPS TO ENHANCE YOUR BOOK CLUB

1.
The Madonnas of Echo Park
is inspired by a childhood incident that the author can't let go of, as told in the Author's Note. Consider it from the real Aurora's perspective and ask members to share a formative moment from their own childhood, in which they were refused something because of who they were or how they were perceived.

2. Several of the characters mention favorite musicians from their teen years—Aurora was obsessed with Morrissey, Angie loved Gwen Stefani and No Doubt, and Alma enjoyed Madonna. Ask members to pick an artist who was essential to their teen years and bring their favorite song by that musician to the meeting.

3. Immigration reform is a perennial topic in American politics, with many calling for more aggressive laws while others believe that more leeway should be allowed. Have members vote anonymously on immigration reform—stricter or more relaxed—and discuss the results.

4. Have a book club movie night: watch
A Day Without a Mexican,
in which the entire Hispanic population of California disappears. How does the portrayal of Angelinos, both white and Hispanic, compare with
The Madonnas of Echo Park
?

5. Ask each member to select their own Echo Park, a real place that they would write about, to discuss with the group.

 

AUTHOR Q&A

1.
The Madonnas of Echo Park
opens with a fictional Author's Note, recounting an invented childhood incident that is the inspiration for the novel and is a story in itself. Why did you choose to open with a fictionalized Author's Note?

I'm fascinated by books where the author inserts himself into the narrative. Less fascinating, though, are the results, which often reduce the potential of an intriguing idea down to something that seems artificial. What's missing in many of these attempts is a sense of urgency or actual risk. Why is the author putting themselves into their own book? What do they gain as a writer, and what do we gain as readers from the experience?

For years I lived a life in which I unknowingly—then knowingly—denied my Mexican heritage. When I was writing the book, I assumed there would be questions about why someone named Brando Skyhorse would write about Mexican Americans in East Los Angeles. They were questions I had myself and part of the reason my next book is a memoir. The risk, then, was to acknowledge that part of my life in this book in some way. The best place to do that was, it turned out, in a fictional Author's Note. The Author's Note is often considered the one unshakable pillar of truth in a book and has been used in recent years as a venue for full-length disclaimers for memoirs that may stray too deep into fiction. What better place, then, to create a fictionalized reality for my experiences, and what better signature to attach to such a piece than B.S.?