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4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
A Beautiful, Accomplished Debut, December 8, 2004
This review is from: Every Night Is Ladies' Night: Stories (Hardcover)
One of the truths revealed by Los Angeles fiction is that it includes, by necessity, tales from those small cities that adhere to the ragged edges of Los Angeles proper. In Michael Jaime-Becerra's subtle and beautiful debut collection, "Every Night is Ladies' Night," we are introduced to one such city: El Monte. Jaime-Becerra spins ten interlocking stories around the hub of El Monte, a working-class community of just over 100,000 people, the vast majority of whom are Latino. The stories bounce back-and-forth from 1984 to 1989 with one leaping thirty years further into the past. The protagonists reappear all tied to streets like Valley and Live Oak, businesses such as Road Runner Liquor, Pick-A-Part, Tortillerilla Bienvenida and the ubiquitous McDonald's. People scrape together livelihoods as mechanics, fast food managers, tattoo artists, truck drivers and musicians. We see how children, teens, parents and grandparents try desperately to fit in, keep their dreams alive, fall in love. Most of the characters we meet are members of the Cruz family. Jaime-Becerra knows that not all life experiences lead to grand epiphanies or dramatic personal growth. With great skill, he shows us that we often battle just to stay in place. This is a beautiful, accomplished debut. (A longer version of this review appeared in Southwest BookViews.)
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6 of 7 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
fantastic first collection, February 9, 2004
By A Customer
This review is from: Every Night Is Ladies' Night: Stories (Hardcover)
I read "Media Vuelta" in At Length Magazine (www.atlengthmag.com), and was blown away by the story. Michael Jaime-Becerra has a unique voice, and his evocation of an old mariachi's quixotic quest for love was really beautiful and fun to read. The other stories in the collection meet "Media Vuelta"'s high standard. Highly recommended.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Jaime-Becera brings the invisible to sight, breathes dignity to Mexican-American experience, January 19, 2006
The Mexican-American characters who populate the short stories in Michael Jaime-Becerra's "Every Night Is Ladies' Night" live severely circumscribed lives. The grit of poverty, limited opportunities and lack of education wears them down. They are suspicious of language, wary of false sentiment and contemptuous of weakness. Lacking many of the traditional means through which material success may be attained, these proud, often invisible people rely on a seemingly endless ability to work hard, persevere and enjoy what small pleasures life can offer them. We see but rarely care to understand the men and women Jaime-Becerra so lovingly describes: the faceless Mexican-American shift manager at McDonald's, the tattooed day laborer, the invisible electronics/appliance repairman. Jaime-Becerra's greatest strength is his ability to give substance and depth to the urban Mexican-American community. His short stories, all of which are set in East Los Angeles in the 1980s, provide a chance for this community to speak for itself. This is no small feat, given the fact that English is an alien language, one which cramps and limits expression of suffering, alienation and rage. When one bereft nearly-illiterate character learns of a devastating loss, his heart "would crumble slowly instead of breaking into clean, even pieces." In many ways, "Every Night" is a series of songs, corrridos, that are meant to be heard and retold, bringing solace to the beaten and comfort to the bruised. "Every Night" joins the rich body of immigrant literature that explores the possibilities, costs and consequences of Americanization. What Jaime-Becerra does, however, is to illuminate both the singular and universal dimensions of the Mexican-American experience. When his characters suffer the cultural marginalization, economic desperation and psychological pressures attendant to incorporation in a new, strange culture, they relive what every ethnic group immigrating to American has undergone. This universality makes Jaime-Becerra's characters identifiable to us. Yet, they are distinctly Mexican-American, and the Mexican-American experience is singular in our national experience. Because Mexican immigration is consistent and perpetual, because the border between the United States and Mexico is in actuality fictitious and because there is a constant infusion of the "Mexican" in Mexican-American community life, the Mexican-American experience does not easily fit into given models of assimilation and absorption into a new national identity. The ten short stories that compose "Every Night Is Ladies' Night" are tenuously interrelated. Each stands by itself, shedding light on a struggling population's proud, defiant and heroic attempt to survive. The characters in Michael Jaime-Becerra's collection may not be able to express their heartbreaks poetically; instead they speak through actions. Each day presents obstacles, and every act the Mexican-Americans take to endure reminds readers that although grit wears the rough edges down, it also produces a beautiful, polished gem.
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