Imaginary Parents [Paperback]

Sheila Ortiz Taylor (Author), Sandra Ortiz Taylor (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: November 1, 1996

In this uniquely fashioned memoir, one sister uses words, the other installations to re-create a childhood filled with adventure, tragedy, and the two most glamorous and mysterious people in their young lives: their parents.

The setting is Los Angeles during and after World War Two. Hollywood is defining. Cigarettes ubiquitous. A meal is not a meal without meat or eggs. Red lips, toenails, and fingernails match red cotton blouses festooned with yellow sombreros.

Taking on the voices of her mother, father and sister--as well as speaking for herself--Sheila Ortiz Taylor, the writerly daughter of an Anglo vaudevillian-lawyer and a Chicana movie star manqué, strings together well-crafted vignettes that read like film clips. One scene leads to another, fractures into another until a rich family drama and a remarkably clear child perspective emerge through the silences and substance.

Sandra, the elder, artistic sister, offers 3-D collages in a simultaneous yet slightly shifted narrative of life under their father's red-tiled roof.

Mirrors, tortillas, calaveras, Mexico, horses, books, boats and guns are the curios of the Ortiz Taylor family cabinet. Readers will set to recollecting their own pocadillas after relishing this funny, touching portrait of a regular yet anything but common American family.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

In this literary and artistic collage of childhood, Sheila (Faultline) provides text, and her sister, Sandra, supplies pictures of her assemblage boxes. Together they manage to re-create-and perhaps restructure-memories of their Hollywood-style parents. In an opening story, a young girl displays her fascination with her father by searching his closet, examining his socks, his ties and, finally, putting on a pair of his shoes. "My own feet float now in magic shoes laced tight. I clunk forth toward my mother's mirror." There is something childlike about the art in that it transforms cutouts into magical, miniature worlds contained within little boxes (cajitas). The stories, too, reflect on childhood without the excessive analysis that often clots the writing of adults thinking about their own past. Each piece resembles a film clip, with the reader/viewer left to interpret its meaning, as in the story titled "Street Map." In this dislocated, unsentimental tale, the author describes events as they take place at various locations and the eventual suicide of one of the characters. The art which accompanies this particular story continues this underlying simplicity by displaying a locked box with an attached closed notebook. As Sheila Ortiz Taylor aptly states in her foreword, this collection can be described as "an altar... [s]mall objects with big meaning set out in order." Photos.
-mall objects with big meaning set out in order." Photos.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Sheila Ortiz Taylor is professor of English at Florida State University, Tallahassee. Sandra Ortiz Taylor is a visual artist in San Francisco, California.

Product Details

• Paperback: 280 pages
• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press; First Edition edition (November 1, 1996)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0826317634
• ISBN-13: 978-0826317636
• Product Dimensions: 8.1 x 6.4 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 14.7 ounces
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,805,117 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

I was born and raised in Los Angeles. My family was a large Mexican-American family. I married at an early age, then spent time in Iowa, Connecticut, and Massachusetts. In 1970 I divorced, returned to graduate school, and worked toward my Ph.D. After graduating in 1973, I moved to Florida , where I taught literature and creative writing at Florida State University for thirty-three years. I have been writing since the seventh grade. My published work includes six novels, a memoir, and a volume of poetry. Now that I'm retired, I enjoy writing novels and spending time with my spouse of eighteen years.