Where We Come From

March 25, 2019
The author of the collection Brownsville returns to that Texas border town for this thoughtful and quietly suspenseful novel. Retired single schoolteacher Nina lives with and cares for her crabby, bedbound mother. She is looking forward to spending a few summer weeks with her 12-year-old godson, Orly, whose advertising executive father, Nina’s nephew, lives in Houston, and whose mother recently died of an aneurysm. Meanwhile, a few months before Orly’s visit, Nina has gotten in over her head by providing secret housing for undocumented immigrants in the rental house behind her mother’s. When Orly arrives, one boy, 12-year-old Daniel, is hiding there. Despite Nina’s efforts, Orly discovers Daniel’s existence, and the two form a tentative bond, in the process putting Nina’s extended family in danger. While keeping the focus on family dynamics and the characters’ internal struggles, Casares frequently, and often heartbreakingly, sets this domestic story in a wider context by stepping back to investigate the stories of people with whom the main characters interact only tangentially (a waiter who provides room service for Orly’s father in San Francisco; the gardener who cleans the gutters at Orly’s house in Houston). With understated grace and without sermonizing, Casares brilliantly depicts the psychological complexity of living halfway in one place and halfway in another. (May), Correction: this review originally had the incorrect title.

April 1, 2019
A Mexican-American family in Texas finds their home turned into a way station for immigrants smuggled across the border. Cásares (Amigoland, 2009, etc.) returns to his hometown of Brownsville for a potent novel about the complexities of immigration and the lies we tell ourselves and our families. Twelve-year-old Orly is from Houston, has light skin, and speaks passable Spanish even though he strongly prefers English and sometimes denies knowing Spanish at all. After his mother's sudden death, Orly is sent by his dad to spend the summer with his aunt Nina in Brownsville. Unbeknownst to him, Nina has a small, pink casita in her backyard being used by coyotes moving human cargo north. Neither Nina nor Orly quite knows how they got into their situations. Orly's brother is at camp, his father is in Napa with a new girlfriend, and his mother's absence is a gaping hole so big he can't see the other side. Just when Nina thinks she's rid of the smugglers for good, a young boy named Daniel knocks on her back door in the middle of the night after narrowly escaping Immigration and Customs Enforcement. Nina puts him up in the casita and now has to hide her secret from Orly, her elderly mother, and her bossy brother. As Nina, Orly, and Daniel learn each other's secrets, the reader is treated to a novel that addresses the complexity of immigration, identity, and assimilation while telling close, intimate stories. The novel is told in a roaming third person that turns each character, no matter how seemingly one-dimensional or minor, into a powerful presence. Each voice in this chorus has something urgent to say. Cásares devotes a page or so of italicized backstory to seemingly minor characters who would drift out of a different novel without a second glance: a raspas vendor, a coyote quickly arrested, a Brownsville police officer, Orly's English teacher, and many more. Whether it's the teacher about to be deported, a man who doesn't concern himself with the fact that his own mother used to be undocumented, or the many people making the dangerous crossing who are beset by tragedy, these asides all reveal the sometimes-hidden yet always profound effects of immigration. Helping us learn the truth about who we are individually and as a society is the ultimate goal of this novel. In some ways timely, this quiet, delicate book delivers a truly timeless emotional punch.

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June 14, 2019

Twelve-year-old Orly is spending part of his summer with his Great Aunt Nina in Brownsville, TX. Although he leads a privileged life in Houston owing to his father's success, Orly has been through his parents' divorce and the unexpected death of his mother. He's looking to spend a pleasant if somewhat boring summer with his aunt, but Nina has been sheltering a series of immigrants as they make their way into America. Orly soon meets Daniel, a boy from Veracruz about his age, who is trying to get to Chicago to reunite with his father. The two become friends as their parallel stories unfold and respective struggles with identity and independence manifest in different ways, determined by those random circumstances of birthplace and family. VERDICT Cásares, a Brownsville native and University of Texas associate professor of creative writing, delivers this third book (after the story collection Brownsville and novel Amigoland), a timely and sensitive examination of U.S.-Mexico border issues as illuminated by the backstories of major and minor characters.--Jennifer B. Stidham, Houston Community Coll. Northeast

Copyright 2019 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2019
When 12-year-old Orly travels from Houston to the border town of Brownsville to visit his godmother, Nina, he discovers a secret: she is hiding Daniel, a Mexican boy his age who has crossed the border illegally, hoping to be reunited with his father, who is living in Chicago. Though wary of each other at first, the two boys bond, Orly wondering what it must be like to be illegal not because you've done something you're not supposed to, but simply because you want to be safe with your family. But speaking of family: Nina's heartless brother, Beto, is suspicious and resolutely determined to find out what his sister is up to. Nearly discovered by Beto, Daniel flees; but where can he go? Can he possibly make it to Chicago on his own? In this gentle novel, C�sares has done a beautiful job of answering Orly's questions for the reader, creating a vivid portrait of a boy caught between two worlds. The story is a necessary exercise in empathy at a time when there is too little for the Daniels of the world.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2019, American Library Association.)