Crazy Loco Love: A Memoir - Softcover

Villasenor, Victor

Softcover

ISBN 10: 1582702721 ISBN 13: 9781582702728

Publisher: Atria Books/Beyond Words, 2010

Synopsis

Growing up on his parents’ ranch in North San Diego County, Victor Villaseñor’s teenage years were marked by a painful quest to find a place for himself in a world he did not fit into. Discriminated due to his Mexican heritage, Victor questions the tenets of his faith and the restrictions it places on his own spirituality and sexuality. Ultimately, his search for identity takes him to Mexico to learn of his family’s roots, where he soon discovers that his heritage doesn’t determine his intelligence or success. Through this often humorous and poignant tale, Victor deftly undermines the macho stereotype so often associated with Latinos, while exposing the tender vulnerability and naïveté of a young man grappling with the roles foisted on him by the church and society. Victor’s youthful misadventures elicit sympathy, laughter, and tears as he attempts to divine the mysteries of the opposite sex in this powerful, revealing memoir. “The clarity that comes from Villaseñor’s personal and cultural experience is not matched in any of Steinbeck’s major works” (Los Angeles Times).

About this title

About the Author:

Victor Villaseñor is an acclaimed, Mexican-American writer best known for the New York Times bestselling novel Rain of Gold. He has been nominated for the Pulitzer Prize, and Crazy Loco Love was chosen as the Best Biography in English at the 2009 International Latino Book Awards.

Review:

"Readers will find Crazy Loco Love a departure in a new direction, for now the author, revisiting his late-adolescent self, becomes exceedingly interested in matters of the flesh." --Kirkus Reviews

"What a book! ...an outrageous mezcla/mix of autobiography, mysticism, folk tales and more....Here, then, we read the memoir of a victim of anti-immigrant, anti-Mexican xenophobic hatred...Not since Fante's Ask the Dust have we been smacked in the face so vividly by a work..." --San Diego Union-Tribune

"Villaseñor writes honestly about his awkward moments....Brimming with hyperbole and New Age spiritual directives [his] coming-of-age story should inspire those following in his footsteps." --Booklist

About this edition

• Publisher: Atria Books/Beyond Words
• Publication date: 2010
• ISBN 10: 1582702721
• ISBN 13: 9781582702728
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 416