Chango's Fire: A Novel [Paperback]

Ernesto Quinonez (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: October 25, 2005

In New York City's Spanish Harlem, Julio and Maritza are each searching for a path that will give their lives meaning, even if it's shadowed by controversy. Julio is an arsonist for hire, pocketing thousands of dollars from investors eager to capitalize on more expensive real estate. But when he has reason to stop setting his neighborhood ablaze and vows to change his ways, Julio's employers threaten his life -- and the lives of those close to him. Maritza, meanwhile, has become the pastor of a progressive Pentecostal church -- the perfect cover for the scam she's running. For the right price, she'll make anyone an American citizen.

With a cast of characters as colorful as the city itself, Ernesto QuiÑonez brings to life a landscape we can all recognize.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

With the money he makes burning down houses as part of an insurance scam, Julio Santana, 29, a reluctant professional arsonist in Spanish Harlem, strives to make a better life for himself and his parents in this heart-on-its-sleeve novel of urban Latino life by Quiñonez, author of the critically acclaimed Bodega Dreams (2000). Despite his ambitions to make good—he's also in night school and working an above-board demolition job—Julio is wary of the gradual gentrification of his beloved neighborhood, which takes a personal turn when white girl Helen moves in downstairs. Her swings from condescension to belligerence are rather jarring (and not entirely credible), but Julio falls for her and embarks on a doomed relationship. Meanwhile, his old friend Maritza is running a church on the ground floor of his building, which she uses as a front for anti-AIDS crusading and shady immigration dealings. Erratic plotting jolts the reader from one neighborhood drama to the next, as Julio wrestles with questions of identity and ethics. But when he's blackmailed by his boss into doing one last arson job, a plot twist lets him (and Quiñonez) take the easy way out. Quiñonez has a comfortable familiarity with his turf and the catchy Spanglish most of his characters speak, but he tackles too much in this sometimes preachy, sketchy novel.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

"New York City, like the country it's in, is a place that promises you everything but gives you nothing," contends Julio Santana. So the young man struggles to save his crumbling piece of Spanish Harlem even as he works for Eddie, an insurance-fraud specialist responsible for destroying much of Julio's neighborhood. Hanging onto the notion that "in America, it's where you end up that matters, not how you get there," Julio hopes to pay for night school and fix up the apartment building floor he owns by setting fires for Eddie and watching over the old man's unacknowledged son. Soon, though, the flames from Julio's hidden life threaten to consume everything he has worked for--along with his parents; his Santeria priest friend, Papelito; and gallery owner Helen. In his searing portrait of a community at the tipping point, Quinonez ably illuminates the sordid politics of gentrification and the unexpected places new immigrants turn to for social and spiritual support. His exploration of the often misunderstood Santeria--the title references the religion's trickster god, Chango--proves especially fascinating. Frank Sennett
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 288 pages
• Publisher: Harper Perennial (October 25, 2005)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0060565640
• ISBN-13: 978-0060565640
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 12 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.2 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (17 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #375,785 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #83 in Books > Literature & Fiction > United States > Hispanic

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

3.0 out of 5 stars Better than his first novel, but..., December 9, 2004

By 

Guy L. Gonzalez "Malcontent" (Bloomfield, NJ) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Chango's Fire (Hardcover)

There is something simultaneously appealing and frustrating about Ernesto Quinonez's second novel, a marked improvement over his highly-flawed debut, Bodega Dreams, but in the end, still something of a disappointment. This time, the problem lies in his biting off more than he can chew with too many subplots rolling around what is essentially one man's coming-of-age story at its heart.

He's inexplicably combined the systematic burning of Spanish Harlem, insurance fraud, organized crime, gentrification, Santeria, pseudo-socialism, illegal citizenship papers, a shady government agent and a few other random nuggets into a muddle-headed plot that rests precariously, and unsuccessfully, on a straight-out-of-Hollywood interracial romance...and frankly, he's just not up to the task. When the cliches aren't jumping off the page at the reader, the heavy-handed didacticism is smacking them in the face.

His protagonist, Julio Santana, is a philosophizing arsonist yearning for the old days while trying to turn his life around after the proverbial "last job." Almost every other character is either an archetype or a stereotype, none ever fully coming to life beyond the "issue" Quinonez has chosen them to represent. After some hit-or-miss character and plot 'development' in the first two-thirds of the book, the hasty climax gets sloppy and, just like in Bodega Dreams, includes an out-of-left-field occurrence to wrap things up. The too-convenient epilogue only makes matters worse.

That said, Quinonez is no hack and with a less ambitious plot that focused more on the characters he obviously had a connection to, especially the engaging babalawo Papelito, he could have had something really special here. Personally, I could see a viable sequel springing from this effort, focusing only on Julio's journey to his Asiento, his strained relationship with his parents and a fleshed-out romance with Helen and the issues that arise from it. The first two things represent the strongest aspects of Chango's Fire, while the latter's potential got buried in melodrama.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Chango's Fire Roars!, January 30, 2006

By 

John Salgado "NYC Reader" (Virginia Beach, VA USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Chango's Fire: A Novel (Paperback)

I couldn't put this book down! Great characters and an awesome story line. If you like books on Spanish Harlem and its people, then you will enjoy Ernesto's work. Great job brother!

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A realistic approach, April 25, 2005

By 

khalidah kamal "KK" (Pasadena, California) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Chango's Fire (Hardcover)

this is so real. the prose is so interesting that I could relate to the thoughts of these characters and they were real.