Hardcover, 448 pages
English language
Published Sept. 24, 2002 by Knopf.
"Lala Reyes' grandmother is descended from a family of renowned rebozo, or shawl, makers. The striped caramelo rebozo is the most beautiful of all, and the one that makes its way, like the family history it has come to represent, into Lala's possession. The novel opens with the Reyes' annual car trip - a caravan overflowing with children, laughter, and quarrels - from Chicago to "the other side": Mexico City.
It is there, each year, that Lala hears her family's stories, separating the truth from the "healthy lies" that have ricocheted from one generation to the next. We travel from the Mexico City that was the "Paris of the New World" to the music-filled streets of Chicago at the dawn of the Roaring Twenties - and, finally, to Lala's own difficult adolescence in the not-quite-promised land of San Antonio, Texas."--BOOK JACKET.
A beautiful book. I love the way she wrote the early memories just how you remember things - in snippets of sounds, sites and stories. She really captured the history and feel of Mexico without getting too hung up on details. But it will make you nostalgic no matter what your background. Family is family. And all of our lives are a little like a telanovela.
This book was incredibly funny. If you happen to be from a Mexican family, or if you have ever lived in Mexico, you will find so much truth and amusement in this book. I laughed out loud several times as the characters said things that I've heard from my own family. A very well written account of the author's life, growing up as a Mexican American in Chicago, spending every summer at the "Awful Grandmothers" house in Mexico City.
