Customer Reviews

Gonzalez and Daughter Trucking Co.: A Road Novel with Literary License

5 star:		(21)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

If you read this novel with the same passion that Maria Amparo Escandon wrote it, you will be amazed and delighted with every page. Her narrative is extraordinary and the story is simply unpredectible, sweet and ingenius. I loved her first novel "Esperanza's Box of Saints" but I truly belive that this new novel is going to be even bigger, a best seller, and like the first one, it's going to be translated into many lenguages. When the heroine of the novel, Libertad, reads to her fellow prisioners you will find your self feeling as if you were right there, in their shoes, asking for more; in every mile that she travels on the truck you will be seating in the back seat listening to her conversations with her dad. You will discover your self being part of the story and you are going to love every page!!

I expected something of a magical realism novel, but this book surprised me with its very down-to-earth dual tales of a women's prison that was a refuge and the constantly moving truck that was in its way a prison.

Libertad won't reveal her crime to her co-prisoners in the Mexican women's prison in Mexicali. The prison itself is a contrast to U.S. prisons because money talks and thus the prisons are far more free. She begins, however, to open up when she creates a Library Club, where she entertains the inmates, guards and the warden with tales of Mudflap Girl. Her alter ego, orphaned Mudflap Girl is raised by her father in the back of a truck from birth. We watch her grow up and seek her freedom from her increasingly controlling father, paranoid of capture by agents of the Mexican government from offenses occurring many years and many changes of government ago. Meanwhile, Libertad begins to learn that the prison is for her the home and the family she never knew. Mudflap Girl eventually commits the crime that led Libertad to her prison term, and the only way out for everyone is for her new family to right the wrongs that brought her there. Eventually, a happy ending is shared by all.

Escandon's ability to create so many believable, in the terms of a novel like this, characters and so many worthwhile relationships is what made this novel come alive for me. Nothing is wasted, and every character has a place in the universe she creates. The only negative was that I thought the use of CB lingo was a bit over the top. But the characters of the Warden and the three Vietnamese refugee/prisoners and the relationship between Mudflap Girl and Martin more than made up for that. Highly recommended.

The best thing about this book was the fact that I learned so much about so many different things without even realizing it. Escandon taught me a whole new language, not Spanish, but trucker talk. Her writing flowed beautifully, and it was nice to see someone who didn't comparmentalize others. Just because ladies were in jail did not automatically make them bad people. She managed to show the reader multiple elements of many characters so that it was understood that each person had their strengths and weaknesses just as in life. It was an easy read, but also left me with a lot to chew on. Such fun!

Escandon's first novel was of my all time favorites. I started reading this book with caution, and was initially quite critical, comparing it to her last. After just a few pages however, I knew not to worry. Libertad stole my heart the same way Esperanza did. I soon found myself caught in that glorious predicament (Do I turn the pages quickly to find out what is going to happen next, or can I slow it down some, so that I can linger with each character just a little longer...) when I know I don't want the story to end.

This was my kind of book. A total escape from my reality. A quick and easy read, but one to cherish, and to reflect on for a long, long time. I love the way Escandon tempers pathos with humor. How she takes the depth and pain of human suffering, and turns it around to create a masterpiece of colorful imagery.

Now do we really have to wait another five years to meet another cast of her quirky characters???

While tracking the plot of the two interspersed stories of jail and autobiography, I am reminded of Homer telling all the stories of Odyesseus making his way home. There is the same balance between Libertad and Mud Flap Girl. Only in this novel part of the fun/game is verifying/wondering about art imitating life or vice versa and which stories are verdad and which are false. Just like Cheever told us to watch out for the undertoad, in this work watch out for the boom.

I had to force myself to slow down and savor Gonzalez and Daughter Trucking Co. It was so good I wanted to rush through it to get to the end and find out the crime that Libertad committed.

You will enjoy the literary references sprinkled throughout the novel. Escandon is a wonderful writer who knows how to develop a flawed heroine that the reader admires and appreciates. She effectively communicates the internal conflicts that Libertad feels which prevents her from speaking of her crime to her fellow inmates. The reader gains the perspective of an inmate who eagerly awaits to hear her "story."

While Gonzalez and Daughter does require some "suspension of disbelief," it is not steeped in magical realism like Esperanza's Box of Saints. The reader is easily drawn into the story and the lives of the women in the prison, and the life of young Libertad - before she commits the horrible crime for which she is incarcerated.

this book is beyond amazing. i couldn't stop reading, i read it in one day! her first novel brought the world an incredible sense of the mexican culture, and maria escandon just took her character development to the next level. full of suspense, surprise, comedy, and so much more, i definitely recommend this book!

Behind this allegory where the main character survives a paranoid father and living in a Mexican prison, hides a profound and funny story about how families can constrain you and how you can find a family in the most unlikely of places. Highly recommended.

Gonzalez and Daughter Trucking Co is a wildly colorful book and a must read. This novel keeps you craving more because of the disjointed time line and change in narrations. It is a fast pace novel, with wit and humor that does not overpower the seriousness of the stories at hand.

I had to read this book for a college course, but I will read it again for my own enjoyment. The topics covered are interesting and realistic and you will finish this novel fully satisfied.

I recently had the chance to meet Maria Escandon and she was the nicest, funniest person! This book, and her first, is everything a great work of literature should be. Bravo to Escandon for creating such an enjoyable book, and for being such a down-to-Earth person. Reading this book and getting the chance to meet you are two experiences I will never forget. Thank you so much. Everyone who desires to be entertained and amazed should definitely read this book!!!