The Flowers: A Novel (Hardcover)

~ Dagoberto Gilb (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Gilb's new novel is hilarious and thought provoking as it traces the bigotry and alienation among the wildly varied cast of characters living in and around the Los Flores apartment building in an unnamed city that may remind some readers of Los Angeles. When narrator Sonny Bravo's mother, Silvia, marries Cloyd Longpre, the tightfisted landlord of Los Flores, Sonny is thrust into a racially charged environment on the brink of exploding. Sonny is an isolated teen whose only friends are the tragically dorky duo, Mike and Joe, from his new high school. He finds comfort in the menial chores Cloyd assigns him, as they give him a chance to escape the stifling apartment and to interact with the other residents, including Mr. Pinkston (known as Pink), an African-American albino who sells vintage cars to black customers in front of the building; Cindy, a broke and married teenage dropout looking for some fun; and Nica, a teen who is locked inside her apartment all day taking care of her brother. Racial tension boils over in the world outside Los Flores as Sonny navigates Cindy's advances and falls for Nica. Gilb (Gritos; Woodcuts of Women) offers sharp commentary via his quick-witted narrator, and the reader feels Sonny's disaffection as his world dissolves into chaos. (Feb.)
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From Bookmarks Magazine

Dagoberto Gilb, winner of the PEN/Hemmingway award for his 1994 short story collection The Magic of Blood, hasn’t written a novel since The Last Known Residence of Mickey Acuña (1994). With The Flowers, he has blazed back onto the literary scene. Once again, he earns rave reviews from critics who universally praised his ability to capture the rhythms of working-class life and speech. A slow start and a much-too-sophisticated Sonny distracted a few critics, but these were minor complaints. Though Gilb’s newest novel deals poignantly with matters of race, the Dallas Morning News expressed an opinion echoed by many other reviewers about the widespread applicability of The Flower’s themes: “Let’s hope Mr. Gilb’s book isn’t pegged solely as Latino literature. The issues it explores are universally relevant in our shrinking world.”
Copyright © 2004 Phillips & Nelson Media, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 256 pages
• Publisher: Grove Press (January 21, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0802118593
• ISBN-13: 978-0802118592
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.8 x 1 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.8 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (5 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #624,610 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

6 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Colors, sounds and texture...Synesthesia?, March 29, 2008

By	Soli (San Francisco, CA) - See all my reviews

I picked up this book in San Francisco after hearing the author read an excerpt. I was moved by Dagoberto Gilb's spoken word. His prose in print was very much as his natural speaking voice--deliberate, honest and direct. I loved this book! I loved his use of colors, sounds and texture. I loved his choice of words, language (English, Spanglish, Spanish and French) and silence. I loved how he painted a real picture of society. The Flowers, is a bouquet of class, race, age and gender and the problems that connect and disconnect us.

Don't be confused by Sonny's thoughts that are infused with shapes that bounce and blend into different shades. Dagoberto Gilb uses Sonny Bravo's synesthesia to paint a world of colors that clash, combine and enlighten. This is the first novel that I read where synesthesia seems to take on a character form by interacting with the sounds of the city and the people, the emotions of a young man experiencing love, lust and displacement, and the feelings of anger, justice and fear. This book is not about black and white, it is dark and gray with rays of a piercing white light that encompasses all colors and feelings of hope, happiness and opportunity.

An added bonus: If you don't have synesthesia, you will definitely get an insight of how one senses shapes and colors in the frontal lobe area. Trust me, it is not something brought on by the use of psychedelic drugs.

11 of 13 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars our lady de los flores, February 25, 2008

By	Bob Pom Arroyo (I'm in el arroyo) - See all my reviews

The heart of the story's in that opening scene, where the protagonist, 15-year-old (or thereabouts) Sonny Bravo must face sexy and sometimes larcenous mother's irate suitor/employer, pissed 'cos mom's ripped him off, who comes kicking down the front door of Sonny's house, overpowering the kid, kicking his dog and injuring him with his own butcher knife. The tornadoes stirred up in Mother's wake continue to blow through young Sonny's life, landing him a role as stepson to an Okie yokel named Cloyd, whom mother, in her haste to escape earlier consequences, it is implied, has married. Cloyd owns the small apartment complex after which the novel is named, the FLowers.

There's a kind of circular plot at work here. Like a hot southern cal wind spreading wildfires, it blows through that opening, spreading it first into the surrounding apartments at the Flowers, where other fires burn, fires of hateful racial prejudice, fires of sad, wasted girls pining lonely in night-time rooms, fires of adolescent sex-urge, of a youth's own moral conflicts and misplaced violence. These smaller personal fires then reach toward the city beyond, and finally even into history, as the fictional events here begin to resemble the actual, eg., the start of the '65 riots in LA.

Does the Flowers pay homage to Jean Genet? Dished out in the narrative voice of a broken home kid who, strangely enough, is trying to learn French. Notre dame des fleurs...Our Lady de las Flores. The Flowers. Read it.

9 of 12 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Must Read, February 23, 2008

By	fuzzdog "fuzzdog" (portland, maine) - See all my reviews

This novel narrated by Sonny Bravo, a wise and deep thinking fifteen year-old boy, reveals a story from a city where prejudice is intense not just between the white against black, but also the brown. When Sonny's mother, Silvia, suddenly marries the Okie building contractor, Cloyd Longpre, mother and son are uprooted to a small apartment building, where as Sonny sweeps its sidewalks, he meets his neighbors and becomes caught up in their lives. This cast of characters takes Sonny into the worlds of eighteen-year-old Cindy, who's boring marriage gives her an excuse to dose; then there is Nica, a the sheltered Mexican girl who care takes her infant brother but is a prisoner to her apartment. The other tenants range an albino black man named Pink, who sells old cars in front of the building, to Bud, a iron-pumping construction worker, whose prejudice is outward despite his marriage to a Mexican-American woman. Within the stories contained in this novel, narrated to us by Sonny, we are exposed to Gilb's most powerful work yet. Sonny's experiences transcend age, race, and time to reveal the fearlessness and wit that make Dagoberto Gilb one of the best voices in America Literature today. This is a book not to be missed.