Customer Reviews

The Last Known Residence of Mickey Acuna: A Novel

5 star:		(7)
4 star:		(1)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(0)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

I only finished Gilb's "Magic of Blood" a few days ago and yesterday went out and purchased his novel. I read it without stopping. I felt like I had read a Camus or Beckett set in a border town. His novel is not much like the stories, the subject of this being darker and deeper, and about people who are YMCA residents, people with almost no where else to go. The novel reads smooth and you don't even know something is happening to you until you have finished it. Amazing. A review (above) calls this work "slight"! The novel is not a mixed drink. It's straight bourbon, cognac, or tequila.

I've become pretty blase with most novels that I read. They are stylistically the same so often, with a lot of phony action or angst that I'm supposed to know in my soul or some such. To me those are the usual middle-class to rich kid books with clever inventiveness attached. But a couple of weeks ago I came across a New Yorker that had an essay by Dagoberto Gilb that was so beautiful to read that I decided to go out and buy his books. At first I wasn't sure waht his novel wanted to do, where it was going, but then I realized I wasn't supposed to care about that. it's about as character drawn and plot driven as a poem. The language at first seems unpolished, but it only seems that way. This is a really well written book that made me think about more than just El Paso, Texas and the Mexican border. It reminded me of the book "The Stranger" by Camus--when I was done both, I felt a similar way.

Gilb can write. I've always gone for writers who had to come up the hard way, had their ups and downs, never had it easy, never had anything handed to them on a silver platter, so Gilb is somebody I would like right off the bat. I admire the man's accomplishments. There's no trickery here. Gilb takes his time and tells his tale in his own, unique style. I also read THE MAGIC OF BLOOD and liked that as well. Looking forward to other works by this fine writer. I gave it five stars .

I loved this book!!!!

I'm a 30 year old white guy, and I loved this book. I don't know how accurate a portrait of Chicano life it paints, but I was completely drawn in by its way of capturing "life on the edge of society." Mickey and his friends spend their days doing nothing, yet I found their day to day living captivating. This novel is sort of the Bizarro version of SEINFELD. How do you do nothing all day? I loved it.

A friend of mine heard this author read in Vermont this month and so I bought his book and to me it was one of the most odd but original books I've read. It was so strange and at the same time the language seemed so ordinary. I couldn't put it down until I finished, and I can't get the story out of my head. Even though nothing much seems to happen, I feel like so much did. Like I lived it. I've stayed at YMCAs so maybe that's it--took me back to a hard time in my own life.

I think uncareful readers have missed out on this book because it is not long in length. This novel is a dense, tautly written study of people on a border that only happens to be El Paso -- at the edge of being lost both to others and themselves. A story about people not even seen in our society. As concentrated and dark as the situation is, it is also out loud funny. This book is completely underestimated and should be getting much more attention. This is by the author of the equally great "Magic of Blood," an already classic collection of short stories set in the southwest.

This is an easy read overall. Gilb's development of the Mickey character and the YMCA fraternity provided an excellent opportunity for me to discuss in my developmental level college English class issues of physical versus spiritual love, the gritty male pathos of female objectification. The guys in my class can relate to the down and out life of Mickey, and the gals get a chance to see men as they really are--sex and physically driven maniacs of one sort or another. The missing mail and other mundane action though is not the stuff of a great thriller, and the ending lacks enough definition to satisfy most readers. Even so, this hispanic author provides an authentic view into the border lives of the American born Mexican.

The Last known residence of Mickey Acuna takes place in El Paso, Texas. The detail in this book is very vivid. With many decriptions of the desert and El Paso heat. Mickey is a vagabond
from different parts of Texas. He has traveled to California and has spoken about spending time in Hollywood for a while.
Mickey stays in different cheap hotels and sometimes sleeps on the streets. The other characters in the story are well described with The Sarge being the most dramatic person descibed. Overall The last known residence of Mickey Acuna is somewhat slow. With some spurts of excitement, but most of the time there was more dialouge than story.