3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Reveles is the O Henry of Tecate. Delicious short stories!, January 25, 1997
By A Customer
One Saturday each month I do volunteer work in Tecate, Mexico, a dusty border town southeast of San Diego. I'm beginning to think I know something about Tecate; some of its people, restaurants, a nice rancho hotel five miles to the south, its language, and even the glow of the stars in the dry night sky.
What I never knew about Tecate's soul, however, could fill a book.
Enchiladas, Rice, and Beans is the book.
Daniel Reveles, a Los Angeles native of Mexican parents, grew tired of the entertainment industry and moved to a villa on the outskirts of Tecate. It is there he concocted the novelas, or tales, that comprise Enchiladas, Rice, and Beans.
The first tale, "Of Time and Circumstance," chronicles the first weekend that the narrator (who bears an uncanny resemblance to Mr. Reveles!) spends in Tecate. He has driven down from Los Angeles, unannounced, to meet Felix Fernando Espinoza Gil, a.k.a. El Gato (as in Felix The Cat). El Gato is a Mexican lawyer who has arranged his purchase of a nice, quiet piece of land near Tecate, where you can keep a horse and "ride through endless valleys scattering your cares along the wayŠin the arms of your mistress, the wind."
To arrange the transaction, he has spoken with El Gato and his secretary many times on the telephone. In their conversations he discovers a myriad of subtle cultural differences, yet many similarities which bind them, not the least of which is their discovery of numerous words which are identical in Spanish and English. He thinks that he will immediately recognize El Gato from the mental picture he has drawn.
El Gato, however, is not in town when the narrator arrives. Instead, he meets Graciela, El Gato's enchanting and beautiful secretary, who, despite a ring on her finger, promises to escort him to a party honoring El Gato that evening. She provides an undercurrent of sensuality and mystery during the narrator's quest to meet El Gato.
El Gato, he learns, is politically powerful, but has a heart of gold. He sponsors a baseball team at the orphanage, and pampers his ailing mother in Mexico City by hand-delivering her favorite American doughnuts. He drives daily to Ensenada (a good hour's drive) where he comforts a ten year old girl who is dying of leukemia.
The novela ends with a twist, as elegant and graceful as an O Henry tale. Immediately after reading it I re-read it, not to see what I had missed, but to linger in its warm glow.
The first story was my favorite, but each has its charm. A memorable assortment of characters grace the pages: Jeemy, a slightly shady American businessman who seeks the Mexican easy life, ignoring warnings that his life in the tropical fastlane may soon hit the skids. Father Reuben, a priest who is wise enough to know the corrupting effect of too much charity. Ismael Cacabelos, or "Big Caca," a customs agent whose authority was useless when his prized Hereford bull was placed on top of his barn by townsfolk fed up with his petty extortion.
Taco vendors, housewives, farmhands, fortunetellers, and roosters that crow in Spanish fill the pages of Enchiladas, Beans, and Rice, a delicious combination course which left me hungry for more.
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