Maravilla, La

A powerful and enchanting story... a bridge between North and South America. From the very first sentence I was trapped and could not resist the invitation to cross that bridge. --Isabel Allende, author of The House of the Spirits Three thousand years of history and the myths of many cultures, as well as the fates of a dozen unforgettable characters, all collide one hot summer in 1958 in the community of Buckeye Road outside Phoenix. From this desert community blooms a world of marvels spilling out of the adobe homes, tar-paper-shacks, rusted Cadillacs, and battered trailers. At the center of this rich multicultural community is Beto, who must navigate the challenges of belonging to two worlds, and being torn between the love and fear of both. Guided by his jazz-music loving Spanish grandmother and his Yaqui Indian grandfather, Beto experiences all the richness that this community has to offer: Through food, spirit journeys, and manhood ceremonies, he discovers what it means to reconcile all sides of himself. Magic realism in the American Southwest... a wonderful story of cultures clashing and merging... captures the color, language and feel of the small-town South in a manner that is almost astonishing. --St. Louis Post-Dispatch