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Art & Books

The Madonnas Of Echo Park

THE MADONNAS OF ECHO PARK by Brando Skyhorse (Simon & Schuster), 199 pages, $29.99 cloth. Rating: NNNN


You’ve never read anything like this series of stories. That’s because Brando Skyhorse’s subject – assimilating Mexicans in L.A.’s Echo Park neighbourhood – hasn’t seen much literary light. His voice is original and inventive.

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The characters all have a connection both vague and direct to a drive-by shooting at a street corner where young girls, dressed as Madonna, are singing the Material Girl’s 80s hit Borderline. The chapter titled Our Lady Of The Lost Flowers, which recalls the tragedy, embraces Skyhorse’s major themes: immigrants’ passion for American pop culture, their desire to fit in and the sudden and devastating violence that changes everything.

To get a sense of the author’s huge range, consider his varying characters. The first chapter features Hector, a migrant construction worker forced to cover up a murder, the second, Felicia, the wife he left, now cleaning house in the Hollywood Hills for a wealthy but depressed matron. A reactionary Latino bus driver connects to the shooting in surprising ways. And so on to the last chapter, in which Aurora, the daughter Hector abandoned, struggles to connect with her mother.

The stories, written in prose that’s vivid and direct, don’t exactly weave together, even though the author calls this a novel. Instead, they lightly brush against each other to create a portrait of a fascinating and complex community.

Don’t skip the prologue. It’s essential reading – and part of the novel.

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