House of Broken Angels

It was only towards the end of this novel that I came to the realization that this was a story calling for a film adaptation. I am not saying that this was in the author's mind while writing it or that I have heard anything about a studio purchasing an option for a script, but just that the way the characters are drawn, the structure of the novel, the pacing, the vivid settings, and the punchy dialogue all make me think about techniques we are used to in movies. Even the way the viewpoint shifts from one character to another in the large cast is something that I am not used to in books as much as I accept it on screen. It could all be coming from the influence of visual media upon the author crossing over to written media. Whatever the reason, I would say that in this work, it felt to me like a positive influence, one that kept me listening with increasing interest.

Despite the large number of characters, the story focuses squarely on a single one as protagonist, Big Angel de la Cruz, who wants to square his life off now that he's facing the end. The other characters are brought in according to their relations with him, which are varying degrees of messy. There's a funeral for his mother followed immediately that same weekend by a seventieth birthday for him, with a long flashback taking place in the night in between back to his childhood. There is a long deferred reunion, the threat of gunplay, scandalous misbehavior in public, and shared personal revelations by the end depicted in a way I could just accept as realistic. He revels in playing up the Mexicanness of his characters attitudes and behavior and doesn't miss a chance to say what this implies about the white culture they have to contend with. I got to know the flaws of Big Angel, to understand where they come from, and to feel sympathy for his urge to rise above them. Especially interesting was the way the author used the character of his half brother, Little Angel, as a foil so as to highlight the motif of culture as it plays out on both sides of the US-Mexico border. There's plenty of humor there to lighten the heavy themes throughout.

I enjoyed listening to this audiobook read by the author himself because I could feel the way he understood how to get the most out of the words in a way that suggests the subtexts. I looked at the hardcopy version which has a useful diagram of the relationships within the de la Cruz clan, purportedly drawn up by Little Angel himself, which would be useful for audiobook listeners to lessen the confusion. I'm not certain that this was the best book I read this year so far, but I'm pretty sure it was the most fun. I'm hoping to read other works by this celebrated author.