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    The Madonnas of Echo Park
    The Madonnas of Echo Park
    The Madonnas of Echo Park
    Audiobook8 hours

    The Madonnas of Echo Park

    Written by Brando Skyhorse

    Narrated by Robert Ramirez, Luis Moreno, Alma Cuervo and

    4.5/5

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    About this audiobook

    Reminiscent of Sherman Alexie and Sandra Cisneros, acclaimed author Brando Skyhorse’s “engaging storytelling” (Vanity Fair) brings the Echo Park neighborhood of Los Angeles to life in this poignant and propulsive novel following several generations of Mexican immigrants through their shifting cultural and physical landscapes.

    The Madonnas of Echo Park is both a grand mural of a Los Angeles neighborhood and an intimate glimpse into the lives of the men and women who struggle to lose their ethnic identity in the pursuit of the American dream. Each chapter summons a different voice—poetic, fierce, comic. We meet Hector, a day laborer who trolls the streets for work and witnesses a murder that pits his morality against his illegal status; his ex-wife Felicia, who narrowly survives a shooting and lands a cleaning job in a Hollywood Hills house as desolate as its owner; and young Aurora, who journeys through her now gentrified childhood neighborhood to discover her own history and her place in the land that all Mexican-Americans dream of, “the land that belongs to us again.”

    Reminiscent of Luis Alberto Urrea and Dinaw Mengestu, The Madonnas of Echo Park is a brilliant and genuinely fresh view of American life.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherSimon & Schuster Audio
    Release dateJun 1, 2010
    ISBN9781442336162
    Author

    Brando Skyhorse

    Brando Skyhorse’s debut novel, The Madonnas of Echo Park, won the 2011 PEN/Hemingway Award and the Sue Kaufman Award for First Fiction from the American Academy of Arts and Letters. His memoir, Take This Man, was named one of Kirkus Reviews Best Nonfiction Books of 2014 and one of NBC News’s 10 Best Latino Books of 2014. A recipient of a Rockefeller Foundation Bellagio Center fellowship, Skyhorse teaches English and creative writing at Indiana University Bloomington.

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    Reviews for The Madonnas of Echo Park

    4.5/5

    13 ratings8 reviews

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    • 5/5
      My favorite book. I have read and reread it many times.
    • 5/5
      The writing is this book is so beautiful, so heart-breaking, that at times it is hard to go forward. There's a level of overwhelming to the stories. The last one, where everything is supposed to come together, is the weakest and maybe too coincidental to be believable, but overall, an incredibly strong linked-story collection.
    • 3/5
      The jacket flap compares this book to the 2004 film "Crash" -- I would agree with that comparison, but not in a good way... To be fair, this book isn't half as preachy as that movie was, but there's the same sense of heavy-handed imagery linked together by the supposedly meaningful coincidence. I did enjoy the Morrissey cameo near the end.
    • 4/5
      This book had me from the author's note, which begins, "This book was written because of a twelve-year-old girl named Aurora Esperanza." It seems that he, who was also 12 at the time, had said something terrible to her and then never saw her again, so was unable to apologize to her directly. He had to find a different way to apologize, and now, 25 years later, he has. In the form of this book. "I'm ready to dance with you, Aurora. This is my confession. I hope you understand why I need to say this here, to you, in this way:because a work of fiction is an excellent place for a confession."Aurora is one of the many reoccurring characters in this collection of stories from different times through different eyes of the same neighborhood in East LA. This book is a fascinating patchwork of interwoven (whether they know it or not) lives and experiences that show what it is to be Mexican-American in LA (and perhaps anywhere). Skyhorse introduces us to characters who may only be a brief part of any given story but linger in the reader's mind long after the covers close on the book. This is a powerhouse debut novel that introduces us to a writer of rare skill--we WILL be hearing much more about him soon.
    • 4/5
      Despite it being called a "novel" on the cover, this book is a collection of linked stories that all take place in Echo Park with the some of the same recurring characters. I heard great things about this book and found much to admire, but it fell short of my expectations. The part that fell the most short, was that I wasn't always clear what was happening--not because of the magical realism, which I could more or less go with, but because the narration was jumpy.
    • 4/5
      The Madonnas of Echo Park is a novel that gives us a glimpse into the lives of several Mexican Americans that live in the Echo Park area of Los Angeles from the 80's to now. Each chapter is told by a different character yet they all weave together throughout the whole book. The book starts with an Authors Note that tells the reader the reason behind the book. During a classroom dance party Brando Skyhorse snubs a classmate named Aurora Esperanza and after thinking it over he feels remorse and he's ready to apologize but Aurora doesn't return to school. The book ends up being Brando's way to apologize to her 25 years later. (There is an interesting fact about the Author's Note but I'll leave that out to avoid any potential spoilers.)I really found this book very intriguing. Initially the way the POV changed with each character was a bit disorienting but knowing that was coming I was quickly able to adapt and sort out who was who. The way the characters intertwine in and out of each others lives kept me glued to the book. Being a Mexican American myself I could totally picture the characters as if they were family and friends. It was also very interesting seeing how the different characters perceived each other. For instance one character Juan saw Duchess as a chubby plain girl with mushroom hair but Angie saw Duchess as a beautiful fashionista that she aspired to be just like. I recommend this book to anyone who loves urban fiction.
    • 4/5
      The Madonnas of Echo Park is Brando Skyhorse's debut novel. It wasn't a book I'd heard of so I started read without any preconceived notions. I was so glad I read the author's notes in the beginning - it absolutely captured me. Brando grew up in Echo Park, a ethnically diverse neigbourhood in Los Angeles. The novel sprang from an interaction he had at a 6th grade class dance party. Aurora Esperanza asks Brando to dance to the first song - Madonna's Borderline. He declines, but with the phrase "I can't dance with you - you're a Mexican." When he returns to school the next week, he is ready to apologize, but Aurora is gone. When he asks his teacher " How am I going to apologize to her?", she replies "You'll have to find another way to do it." Twenty five years later - here is the apology - the fictional book, The Madonnas of Echo Park. Now ironically - Brando's mother brought him up to believe his biological father was native, not Mexican. He was unaware of this until later in life. The novel is a series of short stories, with each linked to the next. It begins with Aurora's estranged father waiting for day labour. We see the neighbourhood of Echo Park through his eyes. The story then segues through seemingly unrelated stories - a bus ride gone very wrong, a woman who believes she has seen the Virgin Mary, a young girl shot down as she dances to Madonna music on a street corner, and more until we 'meet' Aurora in the last chapter. The links are sometimes very surprising, jumping out and heading in a direction you least expect. (Madonna did film the video for Borderline in Echo Park)Brando brings this neighbourhood to life and the characters, locale and dialogue have the ring of authenticity. The stories are powerful and some are unsettling. The fourth story, Rules of the Road, is about Efren, a Mexican born naturalized American who starts a race war after inadvertently killing a black man. His mind set and determination to follow the rules was unsettling.Skyhorse presents many different voices and outlooks, male and female, all with equal talent. This was a completely different read for me, but I really enjoyed it. A really strong debut novel. The follow up - Things My Fathers Taught Me - about life with 5 stepfathers - should be an interesting read as well.And did the 'real' Aurora ever read the book? Brando did meet and talk to her, but wasn't sure if she would read the book.
    • 4/5
      Skyhorse’s affecting novel-in-stories offers unsentimental, clear-eyed tribute to the working class LA neighborhood of Echo Park and the Mexican Americans who live, work, and die there. Lurking at the center of all of the stories is a tragedy…a young girl, shot and killed in a drive-by on the streets of Echo Park. Her death is the stone in the pond, and the stories presented here are the ripples. Among those whose stories are presented are Aurora, a young woman who was also on the street corner that day; Aurora’s mother Felicia, a cleaning woman who becomes her employer’s only true friend; Felicia’s mother, a wealthy woman who gave Felicia away as a child and now can never get truly warm; Felicia’s ex-husband, who takes a construction job that turns out to be more than he bargained for; several gang members involved in one way or another with the shooting; a bus driver proud to have escaped a life in that same gang but who is nevertheless involved in a preventable tragedy of his own. Haunting and vibrant, The Madonnas of Echo Park is recommended for fans of Sandra Cisneros, Luis Alberto Urrea, and Ana Castillo, but can be appreciated by anyone with a taste for thoughtful, character-driven stories.