pickNYRB comes through again 😸👍 I was not familiar with Monterroso before this and was pleasantly surprised by what I discovered. A hilarious compendium of works by and about the fictional writer Eduardo Torres, the bard of San Blas, Mexico. Poet, critic, essayist, and inveterate blowhard, Torres is a fully realized comic creation, a perfect send-up of provincial literary pomposity.
pick#CoverStories Day 18: Central to this tale is the plight of a father and his young son (who was sent a new pair of #shoes by his mother who is working in the United States) as they travel from their home in El Salvador to Guatemala to the US-Mexican border, ostensibly to be reunited with the mother. My review of this timely tale: https://wp.me/pDlzr-gum
so-soThis was a challenging read. There was a plethora of characters falling in and out of the story and rarely was their end known. Also, there were hallucinations or delusions galore. This was a grim story about a grim time. Apparently, it was a story humanity felt the need to repeat.
pickWhat do the living owe the dead? How do we deal with victims of mass killings? Families need closure and people deserve to be buried/put to rest with their names in places their loved ones can visit. We are human because we have rituals to honor the dead. All of these topics come up while Hagerty describes her profession of handling bones in Argentina, uncovering mass graves of victims of the genocide there. Sobering work but important.
Totally not crying while reading this middle grade novel in verse for work.
pickThis probably wasn't best in audio format for me. I think it would have been more impactful physically reading it. But overall a great narrative of the recovery of genocide victims remains. I spent most of the book hoping these experts will be able to recover Palestinian victims.
Heartbreaking stories well explained about the Guatemalan and Argentine genocides.
"If anyone wanted to commit murder and get away with it, they should come to Guatemala,"
"Work during the day, cry at night" - Clyde Snow
I am glad Hagerty has chosen to write this important book, I cannot help but wish Snow had written an accessible book instead (o/also) Hagerty 's experience as a student is interesting I think a lot of people will connect w/ her internal struggle to handle what we often see as gross body bits of 5the dead
#ThisOrThat
1. Hot Chocolate
2. The kids get a Xmas Eve gift with pj's, mugs, and a movie we all watch Xmas eve, but the rest we open Xmas day.
3. We had a tinkerbell, but our cat decapitated her.
4. Ham
5. Home
Team #XmasChaCha #WinterGames2024
@StayCurious
pickThis is one of the heaviest books I‘ve read. Bones have a story to tell, if you know what to look for, and if you are willing to spend time with them. The author did just that in Argentina. They were searching for bones: trying to identify who they were, trying to properly lay them to rest, find justice for them and their families, give some peace to their families. It was the deepest of emotional labors. This book covers some history ⬇️
