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Helena María Viramontes

Under the Feet of Jesus Paperback – April 1, 1996

by Helena Maria Viramontes (Author)

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A moving and powerful novel about the lives of the men, women, and children who endure a second-class existence and labor under dangerous conditions as migrant workers in California’s fields.

“Viramontes depicts this world with sensuous physicality...working firmly in the social-realist vein of Steinbeck’s The Grapes of Wrath and Upton Sinclair’s The Jungle.”—Publishers Weekly

At the center of this powerful tale is Estrella, a girl about to cross the perilous border to womanhood. What she knows of life comes from her mother, who has survived abandonment by her husband in a land that treats her as if she were invisible, even though she and her children pick the crops of the farms that feed its people. But within Estrella, seeds of growth and change are stirring. And in the arms of Alejo, they burst into a full, fierce flower as she tastes the joy and pain of first love. Pushed to the margins of society, she learns to fight back and is able to help the young farmworker she loves when his ambitions and very life are threatened in a harvest of death.

Infused with the beauty of the California landscape and shifting splendors of the passing seasons juxtaposed with the bleakness of poverty, this vividly imagined novel is worthy of the people it celebrates and whose story it tells so magnificently. The simple lyrical beauty of Viramontes’ prose, her haunting use of image and metaphor, and the urgency of her themes all announce Under the Feet of Jesus as a landmark work of American fiction.

Winner of the John Dos Passos Prize for Literature
Selected as the Univesity of Oregon's 2019 Common Reading book

Print length

192 pages
Language

English
Publisher

Plume
Publication date

April 1, 1996
Dimensions

5 x 0.52 x 8 inches
ISBN-10

0452273870
ISBN-13

978-0452273870
Lexile measure

1000L
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Editorial Reviews

Review

Praise for Under the Feet of Jesus

“Brilliantly executed...intense...exhibits a command of the potential magic inherent in the written word that most writers can only aspire to...a remarkable voice.”—Sunday Oregonian

“Captivating...vivid.”—Orlando Sentinel

“Lyrical...a compelling debut...Viramontes displays gifts of understanding and storytelling unusual for a first novel.”—Kirkus Reviews

“A beautiful story...Her writing is tactile and sonorous, but there is something more...I wanted to meet Viramontes’ characters, squat down, and eat with them.”—Alfredo Vea, Jr., author of La Maravilla

“Tempers a restrained fury at social injustice with lovely lyrical grace...Viramontes has a keen eye for finding beauty.”—Elle

“Gives a fierce poetic voice to the lives of Piscadores in the California vineyards and orchards...Viramontes writes with an irresistible authority that compels our recognition and wonder.”—Judith Grossman, author of Her Own Terms

“A literary feat and a powerful political statement.”—Seattle Times & Post-Intelligencer

“A lyrical tale… Viramontes’ images linger, and the book will linger for a while, too.”—Washington Post Book World

"A moving, heartbreaking tale of loss and survival."—Julia Alvarez, author of How The García Girls Lost Their Accents and In the Time of the Butterflies

“Stunning...blends lyricism, harsh realism and concern for social justice.”—Newsweek

“The best literary fiction makes its villains out of situations rather than people, and finds its heroes not in noble victors but in the spirit of ordinary men and women. In this lyrical tale of a fruit-picking family in some nameless weedy place, there is no sadistic overseer, unless it is the pitiless sun, which sucks sweat and hope from laboring bodies. Viramontes's novel comes the closest of any yet to universalizing this appalling life.”—Joanne Omang, The Washington Post

“An exciting read...Throughout this rich novel, Viramontes brings us into her world and we fall under her spell.”—Los Angeles Times Book Review

“A remarkable tale...a wealth of robust colors and magic...Readers will take to the lushness of Under the Feet of Jesus like a thirsty traveler to a well.”—Thomas Keneally, author of Schindler’s List

About the Author

Helena María Viramontes is the acclaimed author of The Moths and Other Stories, Under the Feet of Jesus, and Their Dogs Came with Them; and the coeditor of two collections: Chicana (W)Rites: On Word and Film and Chicana Creativity and Criticism. She is the recipient of the Luis Leal Award and the John Dos Passos Award for Literature, and her short stories and essays have been widely anthologized and adopted for classroom use and university study. Viramontes lives in Ithaca, New York, where she is a professor in the Department of English at Cornell University.

Product details

Publisher ‏ : ‎ Plume; 33110th edition (April 1, 1996)
Language ‏ : ‎ English
Paperback ‏ : ‎ 192 pages
ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0452273870
ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0452273870
Lexile measure ‏ : ‎ 1000L
Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 5.2 ounces
Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5 x 0.52 x 8 inches

Best Sellers Rank: #52,067 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
- #105 in Hispanic American Literature & Fiction
- #339 in Cultural Heritage Fiction
- #4,307 in Literary Fiction (Books)

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Customer reviews

4.4 out of 5

482 global ratings

5 star		66%
4 star		18%
3 star		9%
2 star		4%
1 star		4%

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Top reviews from the United States

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Roderick kea

excellent piece of work by Helena Maria

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on September 25, 2022

Verified Purchase

I had to read this book for my English class and I must say this has been my favorite book so far. Helena captures the essence and tragedies that migrant workers face in such a beautiful and fluorescent way. Highly recommended.

Helpful

Charles E. Griffin III

Recommended at AP lit training

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 21, 2022

Verified Purchase

Read it. Pretty intense. Slim Hispanic Grapes of Wrath. Very accessible but still important.

Helpful

Mona Alvarado Frazier

Beautifully written character-driven novel

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on June 25, 2019

Verified Purchase

This book is as moving today as it was twenty-three years ago. The novel is written in vividly descriptive prose and illustrates loss, poverty, first love, and family.

A farmworker mother, Petra, is abandoned with four children. Estrella is the oldest at thirteen.

"Petra lied to Estrella because she shouldn't know her father evicted all of them from the vacancy of his heart and so she lied right to her daughter's face, right through the cage of her very teeth...he who had the nerve to disappear as if his life belonged to no one but him." She "forced them to be older, for their own safety."

The reader is pulled into the story by the challenges lived by Estrella and her family. The ongoing harvests, the moving, the encounters with teachers and her first love, Alejo all illustrate a journey to her womanhood. When Alejo gets sick from chemicals in the water and citrus groves, the quest to get him medical help demonstrates the inhumane treatment and the lack of medical care for the uninsured. Estrella must leave a dying Alejo, but instead of crushing her she manages to move forward.

This is a character-driven novel, and the ending is not tied up in a cute bow. It is realistic, however. Also, remember that this novel was written twenty-three years ago, so it needs to be taken in that context, a migrant family's experiences in the 1970's or '80s.

5 people found this helpful

Helpful

Ryan Leack

Culturally Enlightening

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on April 23, 2007

Verified Purchase

I enjoyed this book because of the dynamics between the three or four main characters who show you the life of extreme poverty and desperation that is part of their everyday lives. This book is beautifully written with vivid descriptions and characters that I could grasp. While it's short, it tells an emotional story of a Mexican family who makes their modest living by picking fruit under the scorching sun. It is a tale for everyone, especially people in this country, to read and discover how other people are living their lives simply off the produce of the ground. Read this is you want to be culturally aware.

6 people found this helpful

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Sharon Bracken

Very interesting story about migrant workers.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 30, 2020

Verified Purchase

A sad but insightful story. Well told.

One person found this helpful

Helpful

Kelly

Interesting, but probably won’t read again

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on March 18, 2021

Verified Purchase

I had to read this book for AP Lit. I would say it’s one of the more interesting books I’ve been forced to read. However, It’s unlikely that I would read it again.

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on December 6, 2016

Verified Purchase

I read this novel for my Graduate Seminar in American Literature course, and I couldn't put it down! The writing is beautifully original, and Viramontes evokes deep emotion for her characters and left me wanting more of their stories. The authenticity of this story makes it important for more than just the enjoyment of a good book--it took me inside a world I would otherwise have never been privy to. My heart is bigger,my gratitude is deeper, and my compassion is stronger for having spent time in this book.

5 people found this helpful

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David Louis Gomez

Good Until The Ending

Reviewed in the United States 🇺🇸 on October 9, 2022

Verified Purchase

This was a well written book. The author made me want to know what happens to the characters.. it was good until the end. It doesn’t wrap up the sick boy, the work on the barn of the mother and Perfecto. It just leaves the reader hanging. What a complete waste of money. I don’t recommend this book at all.

Helpful

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amba

Interesting read.

Reviewed in the United Kingdom 🇬🇧 on December 5, 2012

Verified Purchase

I ordered this book as it was on a necessary reading list for a module in university. It is an interesting read, though quite simply written. The time between ordering and delivery was very prompt, which I was grateful for.

Bi

Chicano Studies

Reviewed in Germany 🇩🇪 on April 5, 2015

Verified Purchase

Interessantes Buch. Nicht ganz einfach zu lesen, da es viele Symbole und Metaphern enthält. Gender Studies, besonders die Rolle der Frau und somit auch Feminism sind zentrale Themengebiete. Weitere Topoi sind u.a. Alienation, isolation, and exploitation of "los piscadores", so wie die Identitätssuche und -bildung der Chicanos, aufgewachsen im Borderland.

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