*STARRED REVIEW Despite the title, the Angels here are more damaged than broken, with even a promise of salvation – more than less – by title's end. Narrated by Luis Alberto Urrea (The Water Museum), who has magnificently recorded most of his audio adaptations, this House...
Earlier this year at that sprawling, unnavigable, kvetchfest known as AWP – the annual conference of the Association of Writers & Writing Programs – I got to introduce and moderate the very best panel of the long weekend (the title alone was the most memorable: "I Am Not...
Luis Alberto Urrea's 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist for General Nonfiction reads like a heart-thumping thriller, complete with big cars and big guns, desperate men and boys, waiting women, and an enormous body count. That the story is true instantly turns it into a modern tragedy of epic...
Fact: Luis Alberto Urrea's creativity is limitless. Lest you cast doubt about quantity vs. quality, rest assured: Urrea's got BOTH. He's done the award-winning, list-making, bestselling memoirs, novels, short stories, poetry collections, anthologies, and provided the thousand words for others' pictures ...
Luis Alberto Urrea's "hymn to vatos who will never be in a poem" provides the lyrical frame onto which Pulitzer Prize-winning photographer José Galvez showcases the everyday challenges and celebrations of the Latino experience. This slightly sepia-ed homage to masculinity-on-the-fringe was a 2002 Quick Pick...
Having read Luis Alberto Urrea's unforgettable Border Trilogy, I began the audible version of this novel that highlights illegal immigration with some trepidation. Alas, Urrea doesn't narrate this title; and although it's read with effective gusto by Susan Ericksen, I've gotten used to Urrea's flow, having...
If I hadn't had Luis Alberto Urrea himself read the majority of his novel to me via iPod, I would never have known the proper pronunciation of Parangarícutirimícuaro, not to mention a few choice insults! Good thing I also bought the book, because I wouldn't...
This third and final installment of Luis Alberto Urrea's Border Trilogy is unmistakably his most personal. His "good Republican" mother from Staten Island never accepted his Mexican identity. His "devil on the dance floor"-father was once on Mexico's presidential staff, becoming a bowling alley janitor...
Once I opened this second volume in Luis Alberto Urrea's Border Trilogy, I simply couldn't stop. So here's the best thing I can say about Lake after reading his first border title, Across the Wire: Lake is more of the same ...
Thanks to a sudden snowstorm and ensuing power outage, I had every excuse to strap on my headband flashlight and read the first of Luis Alberto Urrea's Border Trilogy without pause. Given the sheer gawk-factor of these pages, any excuses were negligible: This is definitely...
