Mexican High: A Novel [Hardcover]

Liza Monroy (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 10, 2008

The daughter of an American diplomat, Mila has spent her childhood moving from country to country. When her mother is reassigned to Mexico City for Mila’s senior year of high school, Mila has no idea what to expect. Mexico seems to be a country with the ultimate freedoms: the wealthy students at her private international school—the sons and daughters of Mexico’s ruling class—party hard at exclusive clubs, dress in expensive clothing, and see more of their housekeepers than they do their globe-trotting parents. But Mila has more in common with them than they know: her father, whose identity has been kept from her, is a high-ranking politician with whom Mila’s mother had a one-night stand in her hippie days. Now Mila is determined to discover who he is, whatever the cost may be.

A novel that covers the same adolescent terrain as Prep, though in an entirely different landscape, Mexican High is an eye-opening, page-turning coming-of-age story about identity, belonging, and first love. In a setting rife with sex, drugs, and political corruption, it is also a revealing look at elite Mexican society, and its freedoms, dangers, and excesses. Monroy’s flawless evocation of the brink of adulthood, in many ways mirrored by the turmoil of Mexico City itself, makes this a truly memorable debut.

Editorial Reviews

From School Library Journal

Adult/High School—Mila, the daughter of an ex-hippie diplomat, has settled into her Washington, DC, high school very nicely after stints in Asia, Europe, and South America. She's a straight-A cheerleader heading into her senior year in 1993 when her mother drops the bomb: she has been reassigned to Mexico City. Although intrigued by the possibility of discovering her mysteriously anonymous father, Mila is resistant and resentful of the move. Feeling insecure when faced with the ultrarich cliques of her international high school and reeling from a date rape, her good-girl, preppy self disappears as pot, Ecstasy, acid, cocaine, and peyote become part of her routine; much of the narrative is taken up with drinking in nightclubs, procuring drugs, and bribing policemen. The famously corrupt political arena becomes personal in more ways than one. The prose is dense, full of details about daily life, and the teen packs a lot of living into her senior year (yet still manages to get into Harvard). The Mila that narrates from a later date is sometimes a little too wise and philosophical, and her attitude toward the drugs and sex that punctuate the teens' lives goes quickly from shocked innocence to world-weary nonchalance. Teens who enjoy reading about the exploits of the young, rich, and virtually parentless (think "Gossip Girl") will enjoy this book.—Jenny Gasset, Orange County Public Library, CA
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Review

Praise for Mexican High

“Liza Monroy, wise beyond her years, brilliantly portrays the highs and lows and loves of school life, the episodes we’ve all experienced and never forget. Spirited, harrowing, and utterly compelling, Monroy’s captivating voice will be with you long after you’ve finished reading.”
—Oscar Hijuelos, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of The Mambo Kings Play Songs of Love

“Liza Monroy’s coming of age story set in Mexico manages to be hot, hilarious, and heartbreaking—all at the same time. A stunning debut.”
—Susan Shapiro, author of Lighting Up and Five Men Who Broke My Heart

“Liza Monroy has a magical voice, the kind that makes you want to read the next sentence and then the one after that to see what turn her writing will take next. She is observant, funny, and curiously wise about the culture we live and flounder in.”
—Daphne Merkin, author of Dreaming of Hitler and Enchantment

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 352 pages
• Publisher: Spiegel & Grau; First Edition edition (June 10, 2008)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0385523599
• ISBN-13: 978-0385523592
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.2 x 1.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.2 pounds
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (30 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #723,219 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Liza Monroy is the author of the novel MEXICAN HIGH, and is hard at work on her next book in her home of Brooklyn, New York. Her articles and essays have appeared in Poets & Writers, The New York Times, The New York Times Magazine, the L.A. Times, Newsweek, Village Voice, Everyday With Rachael Ray, Jane, Self, Bust and others. The daughter of a U.S. Foreign Service officer, she has lived and worked in Mexico, Italy, Holland, the Czech Republic, Greece, and the United States. Her writing has also appeared in anthologies: The New York Times Best of Modern Love collection, Rebecca Walker's ONE BIG HAPPY FAMILY, the travelogues Mexico, A Love Story and Greece, A Love Story from Seal Press, and others. She teaches writing at Columbia University, Mediabistro.com, and elsewhere.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars How do you say "Hollywood-bound" en espanol?, June 15, 2008

By 

a reader (new york, ny) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mexican High: A Novel (Hardcover)

If ever there were a book with cinematic potential, this is it. MH is a fantastic ride from beginning to end, but I have to add that Monroy's pacing is so perfect and her images, so sharp, that I hope the talent scouts are poised to make an offer before the producers of "Gossip Girl" ante-up. In any event, this debut novel is as hip and fun, as it is painfully raw and real. Monroy is the real deal, and she's poised for a brilliant career.

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars You don't have to be in Mexico to get High, but it sure helps., June 14, 2008

By 

Matthew Parker - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mexican High: A Novel (Hardcover)

"Mexican High" is a coming of age story with a lime chaser, plumbing not only the depths of teen angst, but so too more pertinent issues like class, race, culture, drugs, crime, corruption, and immigration. Set in the maze of Mexico City, Monroy's Milagro raises a pointed question: "How much of our crime is compounded by the laws we pass to prevent it?" Readers of smart literary fiction should not be deterred by the chick-lit cover...this thoughtful, articulate debut is anything but...it's right up there with Jhumpa Lahiri and other top multicultural writings.

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Fast Times - and Spoiled Elites - at Mexico High, January 10, 2010

By 

Andrew Paxman (Jackson, MS, USA) - See all my reviews
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Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Mexican High: A Novel (Kindle Edition)

The twist in this upscale coming-of-age novel, which features the expected quantities of pot, blow, awkward sex, and epiphanies about conformism, is that its narrator is an American at a Mexican school. The thinly-veiled setting is Mexico City's American School, as infested with cocaine and Prada as it's often reputed to be, and the experiences of the feisty Mila Márquez are somewhat modelled on Monroy's own. Events that flitter across Mila's radar - political assassinations, Zapatista rebellion, currency devaluation - place the timeframe in 1993-94, the same time a teenaged Monroy moved to the Mexican capital (and two years after I moved there myself).

As a Spanish-speaker, Mila is able to penetrate the rarefied stratum of the school's social elite, the "fresa" set, while retaining her Mexican-American suspicions of all they represent: conspicuous consumption, social elitism, and Mexico's abysmal racial divide. Here lies the novel's real value. Mila's awakening to injustice and the marginalization of the darker-skinned majority repeatedly rings true, as do her conflicted reactions to the rich. Mexican high society can indeed entice: so beautiful to look at, so stylishly dressed, such easy charm, such cosmopolitanism. The way Mila lets herself be sucked in by all that, despite her egalitarian instincts, is entirely credible. So is her gradual withdrawal from such company, which stops short of complete. Monroy is careful to shade her wealthiest characters: some are wholly irresponsible, others have at least a glimmer of moral awareness. There's plenty to disgust in Mexican High, but this is not a merciless satire of high-income idiocy à la Evelyn Waugh's The Loved One.

Mila's voice sounds too mature for a 16-year old, and her barely-tamed exuberance for narcotics may irk some readers. Monroy could have done more to flesh out the lives of the maids, gardeners and chauffeurs who hustle to make the cosy lives of the rich yet cosier. Mention of Mila taking the subway home at 3 a.m., when in fact it shuts at midnight, raises doubts over Monroy's familiarity with the lifestyles of the city's less well-off; so does a reference to a cab driver with a cell-phone (common now but never then). Otherwise, her eye for detail is impressive, and anyone who knew the metropolis in the 1990s will feel nostalgia for its popular haunts. Peppered with poignant moments of adolescent yearning and disappointment, this is a lively critique of a world rarely glimpsed in English-language writing.