Readings

Crazy Loco

Dial Books for Young Readers, 144 pp., $16.99

Somewhere in South Texas there's a region called the Valley. It is not quite the Valley of Ashes, and it certainly is not the Valley of the Dolls. But most Texans would be hard-pressed to describe what life is like in the Valley, or why it's even called the Valley, or why anyone would write a collection of stories about this largely unexplored place. Author David Rice, who was born in Weslaco (if the town's name seems strange it's because its founder named it after his eponymous W.E. Stewart Land Co.), makes an understated attempt at bringing the valley to light in the nine stories of Crazy Loco. While the stories explore themes and tropes familiar to anyone who has lived or read about the Mexican-American experience, Rice's work is unique in its subtle depiction of small communities living in unexpected relation to each other and the outside world.

From the speaker in "Valentine," who experiences the sting of rejected love while he's still in kindergarten, to the young altar boy in training of "Last Mass," Rice's characters are constantly forced to find a secure place in a world that has cast them as outsiders. In his most effective story, "Her Other Son," the narrator is forced to come to terms with his American citizenship when the death of his Mexican live-in maid's son awakens his senses to the previously misunderstood village just south of the river. While he has grown up handing down his worn-out clothes and furniture to the maid and her family, never stopping to learn about their lives, always thinking of them as the outsiders, he is shocked to discover how alike they are upon the boy's death. When he finally visits her house for the first time, with its wallpaper of photographs of the maid's sons wearing his old shirts, he notices how much they even look alike: "My tía commented that Emiliano and I looked like brothers, and for the first time I didn't mind the comparison."

Rice's work also deserves praise for presenting a slice of Mexican-American life that is neither over-romanticized, operating as a veiled and vitriolic social commentary, or tainted with easy nostalgia. While there is obviously some remorse guiding his pen through the book, he proves his skill as a controlled and disciplined writer by treating these topics with restraint and finesse. Ultimately, the nine stories in Crazy Loco offer an amusing and worthwhile descent into a valley of everyday passion and passage.