A lyrical and authentic book that recounts the story of a border-town family in Brownsville, Texas in the 1980′s, as each member of the family desperately tries to assimilate and escape life on the border to become “real” Americans, even at the expense of their shared family history. This is really un-mined territory in the memoir genre that gives in-depth insight into a previously unexplored corner of America.
Domingo Martinez lays bare his interior and exterior worlds as he struggles to make sense of the violent and the ugly, along with the beautiful and the loving, in a Texas border town in the 1980s. Partly a reflection on the culture of machismo and partly an exploration of the author’s boyhood spent in his sister’s hand-me-down clothes, this book delves into the enduring, complex bond between Martinez and his deeply flawed but fiercely protective older brother, Daniel. It features a cast of memorable characters, including his gun-hoarding former farmhand, Gramma, and “the Mimis”— two of his older sisters who for a short, glorious time manage to transform themselves from poor Latina adolescents into upper-class white girls. Martinez provides a glimpse into a society where children are traded like commerce, physical altercations routinely solve problems, drugs are rampant, sex is often crude, and people depend on the family witch doctor for advice. Charming, painful, and enlightening, this book examines the traumas and pleasures of growing up in South Texas and the often terrible consequences when different cultures collide on the banks of a dying river.
About Domingo Martinez
Domingo Martinez has worked as a journalist and designer in Texas and at virtually every periodical in Seattle, including The Stranger, Seattle Weekly, the Seattle Times, and the Seattle Post-Intelligencer. His work has appeared in Epiphany, and he read an adaptation of “The Mimis” on This American Life in October 2012.
Editorial Review
Though dirt poor, the author’s Mexican-American family continually demonstrated resilience, solidarity and humor. His parents, “children themselves” right out of high school, began having kids in the late-’60s. In a household of “Sisyphean wetbacks” struggling to make ends meet, Martinez was the youngest. Much like his siblings, he was light-skinned, didn’t identify with Mexican culture, and spoke English, an anomaly in a primarily Spanish-speaking region. From his family’s crowded house emerge resonant stories about a tough, gun-toting, spell-casting Gramma; the death of the family dog and his father’s swift retribution; his two older sisters, “the Mimis,” who dyed their hair blonde, dressed in designer labels and adopted a “Valley Girl” affectation; his hard-drinking, abrasive father’s drug trafficking; shenanigans with friends; turbulence with close older brother Dan; and melancholy recollections of beatings from his parents and what he can remember of their sordid histories. At more than 450 pages, the personal remembrances may prove wearisome, even as the narrative brims with candid, palpable emotion. Still, Martinez lushly captures the mood of the era and illuminates the struggles of a family hobbled by poverty and a skinny Latino boy becoming a man amid a variety of tough circumstances. – Kirkus Reviews
From Boy King Of Texas To Literary Superstar
NPR Book Review – October 11, 2012 (Excerpt)
Domingo Martinez is the author of The Boy Kings of Texas.He has been nominated for a National Book Award in the nonfiction category.
Yesterday morning I’m lying in bed and the phone rings. It’s way too early. I’m thinking — “Wow, bill collectors are calling earlier and earlier.”
Except it wasn’t a bill collector. It was Alice Martell, my agent. She was calling to tell me that I’d been nominated for the National Book Award.
I didn’t really understand what she was telling me. Probably, if I did, I would be even more intimidated than I am now. I’m the only author in my category without a Pulitzer.
Actually, if I stop to think about it, I might seize up. So instead, I’m reorganizing my Netflix queue. And concentrating on keeping my iPhone from switching to “landscape” mode — anything, as long as I don’t have to think about what I’m up against.
I’ve thought about this award before. I remember one November about two years ago, I was stuck on my commute listening to Patti Smith accept her award. I was miserable, the weather was gray, and I was managing a print shop in Seattle. I was mad at Patti because it wasn’t enough for her to change rock and roll, and blaze the trail for women: She had to go and win a National Book Award. MY award. [Read the full article...]
Returning to the Scene of a Memoir
The New York Times Book Review – November 9, 2012 (Excerpt)
BROWNSVILLE, Tex. — It was the first time Domingo Martinez had returned here in nearly 10 years, and it seemed as if nothing and everything had changed. His street, once rutted caliche, was now potholed pavement. Favorite stores had shuttered, but new mom-and-pops still sold tamales and tacos, and the 18-foot border fence between the United States and Mexico slashed rust brown through farmland panoramas.
Mostly, Mr. Martinez marveled at how the decade had worn on his grandmother Virginia Campos Rubio, softening that gun-slinging lioness into a slow-moving 85-year-old with a gentle smile. Ms. Rubio is one of the central characters in Mr. Martinez’s book, “The Boy Kings of Texas: A Memoir,” which is a finalist for the 2012 National Book Award in nonfiction. In the book Mr. Martinez describes how an abusive, starvation-plagued childhood filled Ms. Rubio with rage, making her both loved and feared in the barrio where he grew up. She still keeps a pistol on her bed, alongside a copy of the Bible, a doll and a bag of cheese puffs. [Read the full article...]
THE SABRINA STRONG SERIES by LORELEI BELL
