Eighteen-year-old Val leaves his West Texas hometown to search for his long-lost father. The quest takes him to the gaming table of Reno, Nevada and offers Val an escape from an impending marrieage and an existence in a town where life has been difficult because his mother is Mexican. Ultimately, the reunion not only gives him the father he'd thought dead but also a newfound pride in his Mexican heritage and the courage to follow his dream.
Breaking Even
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Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From School Library Journal
Grade 9 Up?At first glance, this novel is yet another male coming-of-age story. What sets it apart from the pack is that the hero, Valentin Cooper, is of Mexican-American heritage and his story takes place in the 1950s. Val, 18, lives in a small town in West Texas. He leaves his Mexican mother, Anglo stepfather, and pregnant girlfriend to find his father, a "nickel-plated bastard" say some, who had supposedly died a hero years before. Val's footloose quest takes him to a meeting with his father and his companion, a Reno prostitute and wanna-be singer, Blue Morgan, in an El Paso hotel. From there, Val, Frank, and Blue go on to Tahoe and then to Reno for the "big game" of high-stakes poker and a final confrontation between father and son. Val realizes that he can only be a man when he, unlike Frank, takes full responsibility for his actions. The novel's only shortcoming is a tendency for the author's prose and characterization to slide into cliche. After all, isn't the hooker with a heart of gold who seems to be "one of those lost souls who can love only men who mistreat them" someone who turns up just a bit too often??David A. Lindsey, Lakewood High and Middle School Libraries, WA
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1998 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Kirkus Reviews
A Mexican-American teenager comes to terms with his melting- pot heritage--in a labored and predictable picaresque tale from the author of The Dark Side of the Dream (1995). Having turned 18 and graduated from high school in 1955, Valent¡n Cooper is eager to break out of Big Bend, the West Texas whistle stop where he grew up. A film buff who hopes to make some kind of a living in Hollywood, he feels hemmed in by his loving but demanding mother Guadalupe (who owns a roadside cafe frequented by local farmers and long-haul truckers) and a pregnant Anglo girlfriend named Bonnie Gortner. Before leaving town, Val learns that the Anglo father he had been told died a hero's death before his birth is not only alive and well but an itinerant gambler who works the western US. Using information reluctantly furnished by a local lawyer, the vaguely aggrieved man-child catches up with his errant parent in El Paso. Frank Cooper proves a charming if stubbornly independent individual willing to accord his long-lost son no more than partner status. Since Frank hopes to amass the bankroll that he needs to qualify for a potentially lucrative poker game in Reno, the two tour the Sunbelt's gaming outposts. At length, there's enough money to buy Frank a seat at the card table and (unsurprisingly) give him a chance to betray his offspring's trust. At the close, Val (wise enough to appreciate that he has more than broken even on his high-stakes wager of emotion and time) spurns his deadbeat dad's appeal to join forces with him and hops a bus for Big Bend, though he'll leave again--this time for California. Self-indulgent period fiction that does little to evoke the postWW II/Korean Conflict era, let alone prove that ``the thoughts of youth are long, long thoughts.'' -- Copyright ©1997, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Important Lesson In Life, For Kids And Single Parents,
This review is from: Breaking Even (Paperback)
I'm fifteen-years-old. My parents got divorced when I was eleven. I come from three generations of divorced parents. I wondered what the problem was with me, that I couldn't be with my dad. Then I read Alejandro Grattan Dominguez's book "Breaking Even", which was great, and I looked at the situation a lot differently.
I related to Val through most of the book. It made me feel better that it's okay to live without my dad. My dad lives in Phoenix right now and he is giving my mom and I problems that I'm not living with him. I'm not losing anything at all by not having my dad around. I'm having a good life without him. He is the one missing out. So to me, he is a jerk like Frank Cooper in the book. I really got into the book when Val just walked out on his dad, because that is similar to what I did, and when I did, I felt bad, but inside, I actually didn't. Now that I have read this book, I feel a lot better and it taught me some things. For instance, how Val left Big Bend, Texas, I left Dover, Delaware. That is where I grew up until I was seven-years-old when we started traveling. My family in Delaware thinks it's so bad that my brother and I travel. I have fun with my gymnastics, traveling everywhere and seeing interesting things outside of where I grew up. But instead, my family is back in Delaware thinking they're having fun in their toxic waste State. My situation is similar to Val's family and friends. They didn't want him to go search for his dad or work at his goal to go to California, but it's a lot better than staying in one place all your life. Plus, it's educational to see all the States and different cultures. My opinion is that "Breaking Even" should be read in all High Schools in the Country because about seventy percent of kids in the U.S. only have one parent. I'm telling all my friends to read it. We're all miserable because of our parent's selfishness. It will help them like it helped me.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
"Fine storytelling" - The Multicultural Review,
By Edward Erazo, The Multicultural Review (becke... (New Mexico State University) - See all my reviews
This review is from: Breaking Even (Paperback)
This is a coming-of-age story set in the 1950s. Val, an 18-year-old Mexican-American, works in his Mexican mother's cafe, lives for the movies, and dreams about leaving the small West Texas town where he has lived all his life. Having grown up thinking that his Anglo father was dead, he is shocked to learn that he is alive,and there begins the real story. It is Val's search not only for his father, Cooper (who looks to Val like a Hollywood movie star and is actually a professional high-stakes gambler), but also for his own identity and roots as a Mexican-American man. Team the father and son characters Cooper and Val with Ms. Blue Morgan, a kind-hearted, aging paid companion from Reno, and the story becomes even more deliciously colorful and complicated. A poker game brings these three together in El Paso for their initial meeting, and it leads to a bigger poker game in Reno and the adventure of their lives. They are all coincidentally at turning points and must decide on new courses for their lives. This is more than a coming-of-age story; it is one of coming to terms with one's life and taking responsibility for that life. It is a story of hard questions and decisions. Ultimately, it is a story of liberation from past circumstances and the pursuit of destiny. Grattan-Dominguez is a fine storyteller with a good sense of dialogue. His portrayals of character and of the authentic Southwest are sure to earn him a growing reputation as a writer.
5.0 out of 5 stars
Good novel, great read,
This review is from: Breaking Even (Paperback)
This finely-crafted novel of discovery and reaching adulthood is an entrancing fast read. Mr. Grattan-Dominguez has created a classical format; like a play in five acts, the five parts of the tale move the storyline along at a dramatic pace. Part One sets up the exposition as it involves the reader in the events of the protagonist's eighteenth birthday and introduces the small west Texas town from which he yearns to escape. The author's sense of place and character creation is so strong that the reader CARES about Val Cooper before the end of the first chapter. From that point, it is hard to put the book down.
It is perhaps Mr. Grattan-Dominguez's background as screenwriter that enables him to write dialogue that sounds exactly authentic, and to create scenes that are surprising visual in a piece of written fiction. Whatever this case may be, the author is a gifted storyteller who keeps the reader hoping Val will succeed in his quest and achieve his ambition, and that his discoveries along the way will not destroy him. We also come to care about the characters around Val: his Mexican mother and her problems because of her ethnic identity, his stepfather, his girlfriend Bonnie, and the wonderfully believable "Blue Morgan"--a would-be singer, down on her luck, with a soft heart. This is an emotional book, not without grit, but with a final paragraph that satisfies one's longing to learn how Val turned out. It is one of those rare books whose characters stay with the reader after the final page, and which can be re-read with pleasure equal to or greater than that of the first time. I also wished for a sequel in order to spend more time with Val. Perhaps Mr. Grattan-Dominguez could further entertain us with the details of Val's life during the years covered by the last text break in the novel. It is a gifted writer who can leave his readers craving more.
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