#hector tobar

[judgingbooksbycovers]

Our Migrant Souls: A Meditation on Race and the Meanings and Myths of “Latino”

By Héctor Tobar.

Design by Rodrigo Corral.

[idratherdreamofjune]

He understands that it's as if he and these strangers had lived something together: a shared experience with him in the mine and them on the outside. What he feels from these strangers is the gratitude of people who've been given a true and hopeful story, a timeless legend born of their own time, in a humble country in the shadow of the Andes.

Deep Down Dark: The Untold Stories of 33 Men Buried in a Chilean Mine, and the Miracle that Set Them Free

[theboywhocriedbooks]

The Tattooed Soldier by Hector Tobar

[Goodreads]

Antonio Bernal is a Guatemalan refugee in Los Angeles haunted by memories of his wife and child, who were murdered at the hands of a man marked with yellow ink. In a park near Antonio's apartment, Guillermo Longoria extends his arm and reveals a sinister tattoo—yellow pelt, black spots, red mouth. It is the sign of the death squad, the Jaguar Battalion of the Guatemalan army.

This chance encounter between Antonio and his family's killer ignites a psychological showdown between these two men. Each will discover that the war in Central America has migrated with them as they are engulfed by the quemazones—"the great burning" of the Los Angeles riots. A tragic tale of loss and destiny in the underbelly of an American city, The Tattooed Soldier is Pulitzer Prize–winning reporter Héctor Tobar's mesmerizing exploration of violence and the marks it leaves upon us.

Thoughts:

This is a book I had to read for class, and it was my favorite that we read in that specific class. The story is really complicated and emotional but thats what had me interested. The writing was really emotional and well-done, and the characters had a lot of depth that is just not as easy as people might think. It talks about wild/important things such as war, activism, love, and revenge. I’m pretty sure it’s one of the only books I’ve read that focuses on Guatemala/characters from Guatemala and it was a great first I’d say. The characters largely end up in LA which is why we were reading it for my class called Literary Cities: Los Angeles, so that point of view of LA was interesting. but yeah, it was really good and you definitely should go check it out! Especially because I am now going to go on about it in spoiler-y detail below:

There were so many complexities in this story but the main one was whether the revenge was justified or not. The main character is trying to kill this soldier, plotting it for a while actually, because the soldier killed his wife. Longoria was an interesting character. They give him a lot of backstory and they really humanize him, which makes for a better story as opposed to one with just a black and white evilness. You feel for him because of how he ended up the way he did but then again how can you understand his actions, even if you understand why he’s in the place he’s in. Plus smaller actions once hes in LA show a very similar side to him as the one when he was in the army, which proves that though he left home he still was the same man.

Antonio is just as complex because you see him change so much from before he met Elena to after he kills Longoria. I think a big part of the story is watching him lose himself to this vengeance, and honestly I loved it. It was heart breaking and it was wild to see him go to the measures he did because of what was taken from him. It was also hard to see where he ended up (living in LA on the streets) even though he was very intelligent and educated back in his own country. When you’re watching him make the choices he does in terms of revenge, part of you is hoping he doesnt lose himself but the other part of you is seeing that there isn’t much else to lose. You see that Longoria will never pay for the crimes he committed, which is not right no matter how fucked up his own life was. So, I rooted for him to get revenge and he did and it was intense and messed up and I loved it.

Elena was such a wild character, she really was one of my favorite parts of the book. She was complex and flawed but she was passionate and beautiful and as I was reading about her in the flashback scenes I kept getting emotional because I knew how her story ended. I think thats a small sign to how good the writing is, you she dies but you read it hoping it will somehow change and of course it doesn’t. It’s just heartbreaking. I loved her passion for activism, and I loved seeing her fall in love. Watching her lose herself, but fight for the children of the town over and lose her life for it. It was all crazy and so well-done.

The overall story of war in Guatemala and poverty for immigrants in LA, as well as the Rodney King riots, all of this important stuff was layered really well in the story and I appreciated it. The importance of activism, but also the horrible realities of people’s lives in Guatemala was very real and very important for me to read about as a latino self-proclaimed activist in general.

Overall, I really enjoyed this book. I feel like thats a little interesting for me because it largely focuses on men but even then I still enjoyed it and thought that the writing/flow was very enticing. Like I said before, its a complex book and that was its strength in my eyes.  

[therumpus]

Tobar’s story imagines the mass deportations promised by Trump in his campaign, and it is particularly prescient considering Trump’s executive orders on immigration that were handed down on Wednesday, orders that among other things include language vague enough to allow deportation of undocumented immigrants who have not been charged with a crime. Tobar’s story goes a few steps farther and imagines a nation in which even “anchor babies,” children born on American soil to undocumented immigrant parents, are being rounded up and bussed over the border despite their natural-born citizenship. The story opens on a couple spending their last minutes together before they are torn apart by toxic American nationalism.

THIS WEEK IN SHORT FICTION, Claire Burgess reviews “The Daylight Underground” by Hector Tobar.

You can read “The Daylight Underground” at Slate.

[jonathanjudge]

[wellconstructedsentences]

The train had brought them to this place called Los Angeles, where the magical and the real, the world of fantasy books and history, seemed to coexist on the same extended stage streets, rivers, and railroad tracks.

The Barbarian Nurseries by Héctor Tobar

[fyccb]

OMG I READ A REAL NOVEL THAT WASN”T ABOUT A DETECTIVE OR VAMPIRES (or a vampire detective) AND I REALLY ENJOYED IT!!

[idratherdreamofjune]

Like everyone else in Chile the top members of the government saw the minister [of mining] cry on television because he couldn't tell the miners' families exactly how he would get the men out alive. Now the Piñera administration has assumed the responsibility of giving him a plan, despite some grumbling from the president's advisers that it's not politically expedient: Why assume responsibility for the lives of thirty-three men who are probably doomed anyway, when tradition and the law dictate that you need not get involved?

Deep Down Dark, by Hector Tobar