What Night Brings (Working Classics) [Paperback]

Carla Trujillo (Author)

Book Description

Series: Working Classics | Publication Date: April 1, 2003

What Night Brings focuses on a Chicano working-class family living in California during the 1960s. Marci-smart, feisty and funny-tells the story with the wisdom of someone twice her age as she determines to defy her family and God in order to find her identity, sexuality and freedom.

"Carla Trujillo's What Night Brings puts one more wonderful Latina novelist on the must-read list right up there beside Sandra Cisneros, Julia Alvarez and Cristina Garcia. This moving story, told in the completely convincing voice of its young protagonist, explores living with domestic abuse and longing for the maternal protection that always fails to materialize. We touch the mysteries of religion in a child's life, and are completely captivated by a young girl's budding lesbian identity. Character and situation building are exemplary, yet we are hit hard when the book takes its final turn. What Night Brings is a page-turner that lingers long after the last page has been turned."-Margaret Randall

"A story that is at once heartbreaking and hilarious, beautifully told by a wise and wise-cracking young girl."-Sandra Cisneros

Carla Trujillo was born to a working-class family in Las Vegas, Nevada, and grew up in northern California. She has lived in the San Francisco Bay area for the past 15 years. Her extended family and roots are New Mexican (Chicana). She works as an administrator in diversity -education and advocacy at the University of California, Berkeley. She is the editor of the anthology, Chicana Lesbians: The Girls Our Mothers Warned Us About, which won a Lambda Book Award and the Out/Write Vanguard Award in 1992 and is now in its third printing. Her critical study, Living Chicana Theory, is in its second printing and widely used in college classrooms. What Night Brings is her first novel; excerpts from What Night Brings have already won awards from the Astraea Lesbian Writers Fund and Writers at Work.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

This first novel by a Chicana writer who has been active as a lesbian anthologist and editor is a pleasant surprise: a lively, picaresque tale, told in the world-weary but ever-hopeful voice of 12-year-old Marci Cruz. Marci's father, Eddie, is a drinker and womanizer who often takes his belt or his fists to Marci and her sister, Corin, but whose wife, the besotted Delia, seems oblivious of his faults. Much of the tale embraces the ingenious ways in which Marci and Corin try to outwit him, or least make their mother see him for the passive-aggressive monster he is; perhaps the most delightful of these is the long saga of their attempt to photograph him, with a cheap box camera lent by a sympathetic uncle, in incriminating situations with his girlfriend. Through all this, Marci is also becoming increasingly aware that she is romantically drawn to other girls and wishes she could become a boy so as to express such feelings appropriately. The lesbian undercurrents are subtle and touching, by no means doctrinaire, and the book, which offers some hope for the girls after a climactic confrontation with Eddie, conveys admiration for their vast resilience in the face of adversity.
Copyright 2003 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

*Starred Review* At one point in this compelling first novel, set in 1960s northern California, 11-year-old Marci says to her uncle, "Secrets, everyone has them, even me." First-person-narrator Marci, with her unconventional way of looking at life and uncensored mouth, is a funny, very savvy guide to her family's hidden shames. She has her own secrets (she loves girls, not boys, and she wants her father to go away--forever) and knows many of her family's--her father's infidelity, her uncle's homosexuality, her cousin Danny's drug addiction. This complex melange drives the story and lends urgency to the plot. But it is the indomitable Marci, the burr beneath her parents' skin and the author of her own salvation, who is the center of this book. What Night Brings is a robust addition to the growing body of Latino and Latina writing. Reminiscent of Anaya's coming-of-age novel, Bless Me, Ultima (1972), and Hart's memoir, Barefoot Heart (1999), it most strongly brings to mind Reinaldo Arenas' Before Night Falls (1993) in its frank portrayal of physical violence, the rawness and obscenity of the Spanish dialogue, and the awareness of Marci's budding lesbianism. Trujillo is definitely a writer to watch. Ellen Loughran
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 242 pages
• Publisher: Curbstone Books; 1 edition (April 1, 2003)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 1880684942
• ISBN-13: 978-1880684948
• Product Dimensions: 8.7 x 5.7 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.7 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (6 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #371,875 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

3 of 3 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Loved this book, August 27, 2003

By 

Ellen S. Switkes (piedmont, CA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: What Night Brings (Working Classics) (Paperback)

What Night Brings is a wonderfully readable coming of age story written with the perspective of a young teen. Marci Cruz's thought process really reflects her age and circumstances, unlike some novels written in that voice with adult thoughts coming from a child protagonist. It captured my heart from the first paragraph, and I read it straight through in only a few days. Was glad to find it on the public library's new books shelf.

5 of 6 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Through, April 22, 2003

By 

"blissengine" - See all my reviews

This review is from: What Night Brings (Working Classics) (Paperback)

Winner of the Mármol Prize, Trujillo's impressive debut tells the story of Marci Cruz in the late 1960s. She prays daily to become a boy because then she can win the girl of her dreams. And she also prays for God to make her alcoholic father go away. Some of the passages seem to gloss over what Marci has to deal with, but Trujillo's strength as a storyteller compels the reader forward because we want Marci to succeed. In some ways, she is all of us, where we might not fit into the world exactly, but we're trying to find out where we belong. Bringing to mind such books as Dorothy Allison's "Bastard out of Carolina", "What Night Brings" is a heartwarming tale of a young girl at odds with her world (her family, her Church) who is on a quest for wholeness.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Very much worth reading, October 24, 2006

By 

Paul Lappen (Manchester, CT USA) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: What Night Brings (Working Classics) (Paperback)

Set in the Bay Area of the 1960s, this novel is narrated by Marci Cruz, an eleven-year-old Latina who fervently wishes for two things. The first is for God to turn her into a boy, because she has something of a crush on Raquel, her teenaged neighbor; the second is for Eddie, her father, to disappear.

A couple of times a week, Eddie beats Marci, and Corin, her younger sister, for some infraction, usually with his leather belt. It always occurs when Delia, their mother, isn't home. Eddie always accuses the girls of lying, or says that he had to break up their fight, and Delia always believes him. During an argument, Eddie leaves the house, and doesn't return. Delia is forced to get a job at the local Woolworth's, and things settle down at home. Several months later, during which time he has been living with a woman named Wanda, Delia takes Eddie back, despite the girls' pleading with her not to do so. The beatings resume.

Marci and Corin disown Eddie as their father, refusing to call him "Daddy" or "Father." With help from a neighbor, they tie him up and threaten him with a switchblade. Marci gets a book on karate from the local library, intending to learn some moves to use on Eddie. He resumes his relationship with Wanda; Delia will accept a lot of things, but she will not tolerate Eddie even looking at another woman. Marci borrows a camera from her Uncle Tommy, and sits across the street from a local bar, intending to get pictures of Eddie and Wanda together. Unintentionally, the pictures get into Delia's hands, and then comes the "final" confrontation with Eddie.

This book is not just about domestic violence. Marci nearly gets thrown out of catechism class, for asking too many questions that eleven-year-olds shouldn't ask. Her teacher, Miss Beauchamp, insists on speaking with a French accent, even though she is from Wisconsin. One day, at church, she sees Uncle Tommy and Father Chacon, the parish priest, come out of the same door in the confessional.

In a way, this book is not pleasant reading, but it is very good reading. The author does a fine job at "doing" a pre-teen Latina. This book could easily take place in any part of America. All in all, it's very much worth reading.