Amazon.com Review
The title of Robert Boswell's novel, American Owned Love refers to the marquee on the motel where Gay Schaefer and her estranged husband, Sander, meet once a month for a pleasant tryst. "American Owned/Love Covers/All Sins/Couples $20, " the marquee says, and under it Gay and Sander contemplate the many faces of love. Their daughter, Rita, doesn't know about the motel, nor does she realize that her parents aren't actually divorced. In fact, there's quite a lot that Rita doesn't know, including the reason why the river behind her house--the Rio Grande--turns black the night before she starts high school.
The year following the river's inexplicable change sometimes runs as dark as the waters. Rita begins dating her best friend's brother, Enrique Calzado, but also attracts the attention of the violent Rudy Salazar. Meanwhile, Gay's carefully balanced life starts to crumble when she finds herself powerfully attracted to the local basketball coach. Rape, anorexia, and the uneasy race relations along the U.S.-Mexico border are just a few of the issues in American Owned Love. Through it all, love runs like a river, sometimes muddied and black, sometimes translucent, always constant.
From Library Journal
In Persimmon, New Mexico, Rudy Salazar lives on the wrong side of the Rio Grande, along with the other illegal Mexican immigrants. Their homes lack electricity or indoor plumbing; they must swim the river every day to go to school and to work among the Anglo community. Rudy's barely controlled anger at the unfairness of life threatens both the Schaefer and Calzado families. Gay Schaefer's marriage doesn't prevent her from initiating a love affair with the high school basketball coach, and her unconventional lifestyle doesn't detract from a desire that her daughter, Rita, navigate her teenage years without incident. Enrique Calzado, 14, whose family is despised by Rudy because they moved across the Rio Grande to a middle-class life, learns that even his love for Rita cannot keep her out of harm's way. On the moonlit night that Gay, Enrique, and Rudy all watch the Rio Grande flow black between its banks, their lives begin to ricochet out of control. Boswell (Mystery Ride, LJ 1/93) is equally adept at conveying a sense of place and creating interesting, three-dimensional characters. This satisfying novel belongs in most libraries.?Nancy Pearl, Washington Ctr. for the Book, Seattle
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1997 Reed Business Information, Inc.
