What Drowns the Flowers in your Mouth by Rigoberto Gonzalez; Univ. of Wisconsin Press, $24.95
In his beautifully written, lucid, and emotionally intense third memoir, prolific author, poet, and educator Rigoberto Gonzalez, who has penned more than 17 books, describes his tumultuous early life with his brother Alex and their coming-of-age into adulthood amidst grief and trauma.
Gonzalez's book begins with his brother's kidnapping from the Mexican border town of Mexicali. The news of the disappearance, delivered from his sister-in-law, happens during the summer of 2010 when the author is at a literary conference in Vermont. He tells her he will pay any ransom that is demanded for Alex's safe return as a show of brotherhood and familial allegiance. While he waits, Gonzalez ponders the nature of their relationship. "I tried to piece together again the story of our lives as men because everything inside me had just shattered."
The book then flashes back to their childhood in Baja California, where the family relocated in the hopes of a better life for all 19 family members. Their situation became further strained once the author's mother dies and their father abandons the family. The brothers' youth became dominated by their cruel, controlling, bristly grandfather ("a bully and a brute.") Both fell into depression and destructive behavior. The author abused alcohol and explored his attraction toward men through a series of self-destructive relationships, while Alex gravitated toward women and endured a series of troublesome couplings, as well as the birth of two children.
Throughout it all, as Gonzalez describes their devoted brotherhood, both men kept in constant touch and fortified their relationship with shared stories of their lives, struggles, and personal evolutions into and out of sadness, dependence, and the messiness and grief of failed relationships. Lyrical and poignant, this is also a story about the nuances of manhood, particularly Latino machismo, and how boys are shaped by expectations, tradition, and vulnerability.
In press interviews, Gonzalez has said that he is currently working on a fourth memoir volume; there seems to be no end to the life stories this multi-talented writer has to share about his legacy, his loves, and the desires that have shaped him into the man and artist he is today.