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The Espejo family of El Paso, Texas, is like so many others in America in 1967, trying to make sense of a rapidly escalating war they feel does not concern them. But when the eldest son, Gustavo, a complex and errant rebel, receives a certified letter ordering him to report to basic training, he chooses to flee instead to Mexico. Retreating back to the land of his grandfather—a foreign country to which he is no longer culturally connected—Gustavo sets into motion a series of events that will have catastrophic consequences on the fragile bonds holding the family together.
Told with raw power and searing bluntness, and filled with important themes as immediate as today’s headlines, Names on a Map is arguably the most important work to date of a major American literary artist.
- Sales Rank: #381018 in Books
- Brand: Harper Perennial
- Published on: 2008-02-05
- Released on: 2008-02-05
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.00" h x 1.01" w x 5.31" l, .75 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 423 pages
- Great product!
From Publishers Weekly
In Sáenz's lyrical sixth novel, Octavio Espejo leads an ordinary life in multiethnic 1967 El Paso: he sells insurance and is raising three children with his wife, Lourdes. Octavio was brought to the U.S. from revolutionary Mexico as a child and talks about the family's roots across the border, but on the whole the family has silently Americanized. The Vietnam War and the counterculture, however, begin to change how his children conceive of themselves and their lives—teenaged twins Gustavo and Xochil in particular. Gus must make choices about facing the draft; Xochil, a rape victim when she was 12, attempts to reconcile the era's passions with internal bitterness. Sáenz shifts perspectives fluidly among the family, relatives and friends. The climax is given away early, keeping the focus on the manner in which the characters come to know themselves—or fail to. The result is a beautiful mosaic of the borderlands as women's liberation and the Chicano movement gain traction. (Feb.)
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Review
“Sáenz’s lyrical sixth novel…is a beautiful mosaic of the borderlands as women’s liberation and the Chicano movement gain traction.” (Publishers Weekly)
“A rich, conflicting, and ultimately heartbreaking saga of a family’s loyalty and love for one another.” (Booklist)
About the Author
Benjamin Alire Sáenz is the author of In Perfect Light, Carry Me Like Water, and House of Forgetting, as well as the author of several children’s books. He won the American Book Award for his collection of poems Calendar of Dust. Sáenz is the chair of the creative writing department at the University of Texas-El Paso.
Most helpful customer reviews
3 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
An Emotional Journey to Freedom
By Vincent Bosquez
While America's "Greatest Generation" had World War II and today's generation has the ongoing Gulf War, a generation that lived through the Sixties had Vietnam, a military conflict that indisputably defined an era and carved a permanent wound into the nation's psyche.
Award-winning author and poet Benjamin Alire Sáenz has boldly sidestepped contemporary history and set his sights on revisiting our nation's turbulent past to tenderly tell the story of an immigrant family trying to adapt to its adopted land while coming to terms with the true cost of freedom in America.
Set in 1967, Sáenz's "Names on a Map" follows the Espejo family of El Paso, Texas, during a momentous week in September when a draft notice forces them to drop the veil of secrecy that cloaks their fears and causes them to confront their internal conflicts etched by customs accepted in Mexico, but found to be out of date north of the Rio Grande.
Octavio Espejo is the son of a wealthy family that was run out of Mexico during a bloody revolution when he was a child. Now, as patriarch of a close-knit family in the United States, he tries to rule the clan with an iron hand only to find that strict adherence to house rules causes irreparable rifts in personal relationships.
Gustavo, Octavio's son, is the recipient of the draft notice that sets into motion the novel's overarching theme of loyalty to family, country and most importantly, one's self. He broods over the price America extracts from its populace in order to sustain peace on the home front and the realization that dodging the draft may tarnish the family's standing in the community more than his own reputation.
Sáenz tells his story through different points of views with voices that are unique, yet also reminiscent of the nation's conscience at the height of the Vietnam War.
Among the characters that emerge from the novel to leave a lasting impression is Abe, a young Marine fighting in Da Nang. He doesn't want to think of home, yet finds that home is all he can think about--especially when it comes to his unrequited love, Xochil.
Xochil is Gustavo's twin sister, who is fighting her own personal battles with society. She learned early on in life that wars come in many forms and that no matter where the battlefield lies, a thousand other wars are being fought at the same time by the same participants, with no two skirmishes being exactly alike.
Finally there's Lourdes, the matriarch who is the glue that keeps the family together. By the novel's end, she comes to terms with what she's known all along: sometimes you have to give up the things you hold dear in order to hold on to them a little while longer.
"Names on a Map" is an emotional journey down memory lane that reminds its readers that war indiscriminately affects everyone, extolling a price paid for in flesh, blood, and the loss of innocence in people of all ages.
2 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Lessons Learned?
By Sam Sattler
America's generation gap was exposed in the late 1960s to a degree that may never be reached again because, as the war in Viet Nam claimed more and more young lives, Americans found themselves politically at war with each other in a way that sometimes managed to split apart even families. Fathers fought sons, wives fought husbands, students fought teachers, the clergy fought the government, and young men fought themselves because duty to country so often conflicted with what was in their hearts. Even all of the political sniping associated with the war in Iraq has been unable to recreate that level of tension.
In Names on a Map, Benjamin Alire Saenz tells of the Espejo family, one of the thousands of families that did not manage to survive the Viet Nam War intact. Octavio Espejo, who was brought to the U.S. as a small boy when his parents fled the Mexican revolution, is a proud and honorable man. Now an insurance salesman in El Paso, Texas, and the father of three, Octavio considers himself to be a patriotic American. It is 1967 and his twins, Gustavo and Xochil, are finishing high school and making decisions about the rest of their lives.
The war in Viet Nam, particularly the draft he faces after high school, nags at Gustavo just as it does every boy his age. Some of his friends are eager to join the military after graduation, some are against the war and will refuse to serve, some will let the draft board decide their fate, and others, like Gustavo, are finding it difficult to decide what to do at all.
Gustavo knows that his father expects him to serve if called and that he will be proud to have a son fight for his adopted country. He knows that his mother is terrified at the thought of losing him in this war but that she will not try to influence his decision. He knows that his twin sister can hardly stand the thought of him leaving home and that his young brother, Charlie, loves him more than anything in the world. But he also knows that the ultimate decision is his. Should he allow himself to be drafted? Should he choose prison over induction into the military, or should he cross the border into Mexico and live a new life there, never to return to the United States?
Names on a Map consists of short, alternating sections in which Saenz allows each of his main characters to speak in a unique voice and from a personal point-of-view. He often describes the same scene through the eyes of three or four members of the Espejo family, allowing the reader to view all of the cracks and strong points of a family stretched to its breaking point.
Saenz sympathetically describes the motivations and emotions of those on both sides of the Viet Nam War debate and readers who lived through that era are certain to see themselves, their families and their friends in some of his characters. Those too young to have lived that part of American history, will come away with a better understanding of the period and will recognize the parallels to America's present situation. Perhaps those on both sides of today's debate would better understand each other if they were to read this one.
0 of 0 people found the following review helpful.
is like so many others in America in 1967
By Vamos a Leer
he Espejo family of El Paso, Texas, is like so many others in America in 1967, trying to make sense of a rapidly escalating war they feel does not concern them. But when the eldest son, Gustavo, a complex and errant rebel, receives a certified letter ordering him to report to basic training, he chooses to flee instead to Mexico. Retreating back to the land of his grandfather—a foreign country to which he is no longer culturally connected—Gustavo sets into motion a series of events that will have catastrophic consequences on the fragile bonds holding the family together.
Told with raw power and searing bluntness, and filled with important themes as immediate as today’s headlines, Names on a Map is arguably the most important work to date of a major American literary artist.
My Thoughts
Like everything else I’ve read by Benjamin Alire Sáenz, Names on a Map does not disappoint. He tells a captivating story that is simultaneously beautiful and devastating. For me, reading one of his books is always a deeply moving experience. Recently, I heard the term brutiful used to describe something that is both beautiful and brutal at the same time. While brutiful certainly doesn’t do justice to the aesthetic or lyricism of Sáenz’s writing, I think the idea of the word captures an important aspect of what makes his work so outstanding. For those familiar with Sáenz’s other novels, you may find his characters here comfortingly familiar as they seem to have pieces of Sammy, Gigi, Aristotle, and Dante, among others.
As we’ve explained in earlier posts, we’re alternating between young adult and adult novels this year for our book group. Our young adult book reviews focus on how and why a particular book could be used with students. We want our adult reviews to have a similar educational focus, but perhaps more on how and why a book is a valuable reflective experience for educators. So, while there’s much I could say about Names on a Map, I’m going to focus on the themes that I hope will be the most relevant to the topics of conversation we have as educators.
A highly character-driven novel, Sáenz tells his story through the alternating points of view of the Espejo family and other members of their El Paso community. Revealing the climax of the story early, Sáenz focuses on the characters’ struggles for self-understanding. One review critiques this, arguing that “Sáenz deftly captures a mood, but his obsession with introspection bloats the family story.” I disagree. I think this is an essential piece to what makes it such a beautiful book. Self-reflection, introspection, and mindfulness are things our society seems to struggle with more and more. Just think about the large number of recent self-help bestsellers that are about mindfulness. While there is obviously something here that we are grappling with as a society, there’s little if any conversation about how to teach our students these skills or how this can impact the practice of education. Interestingly, studies have linked student success to the amount of time teachers have to reflect on how and what they’re teaching. The more time for reflection the more successful students are. It’s not surprising that the U.S. tends to rank at the bottom in terms of the amount of time teachers are given for such reflection. If we find Sáenz’s emphasis on reflection uncomfortable, perhaps we should ask ourselves why that is.
It is the introspective nature of Sáenz’s characters that safeguards against oversimplifying what was a complex period of U.S. history. There’s no question where Sáenz stands on the Vietnam War. In the back matter he shares that he wanted to write a political book, and he did. And it’s a compelling one. But while he clearly is making a point, he does it without demonizing anyone. It was a complicated time in the U.S. People were part of the collateral damage—both those who died and those who survived. While he offers a critique of those who seemed to unquestioningly accept the patriotism of supporting the Vietnam War, he also offers a very compassionate picture of the young men sent to fight that war. He shows all the shades of grey that make war anything but a black and white issue. He finds a way to humanize everyone without weakening his own critique of the war. He speaks truth with grace and shows the value in understanding why people are the way they are and why they do what they do. Yet, at the same time he makes a strong argument for recognizing one’s agency. One of my favorite quotes is a series of reflective questions asked by Gustavo and Xochil’s mother: “That’s what my life had become? Become? Was it as passive as all that? Were we as stationary as trees in the wind? Did we just let life take us along as if human beings were no more sentient than the water a river swept to the sea?” (p. 96).
There are also a number of connections that can be made between contemporary discussions around immigration and the role immigration plays in the novel. Immigration has an important historical role in Names on a Map as the older generations reflect on the ways in which they have changed as a result of Mexican immigration to the U.S. during the Mexican Revolution. Many of them immigrated as refugees from the violence of the Revolution. Decades later they continue to think of themselves as living in exile. This affects not only the ways in which they engage with society and younger generations, but their own personal psychology and identity. This is significant because it can expand and complicate in important ways how we think about immigration today.
We don’t often think about how the history of immigration in a family continues to affect future generations, but we should, especially in light of the numbers of unaccompanied minors travelling from Central America and the refugee crisis in Europe. What are the effects of inheriting exile? As Octavio, the father, ponders: “You remember what your father said when he was forced to leave Mexico, forced to leave the only piece of earth he’d ever love. Todos somos huérfanos en este maldito mundo. Orphans all of us in this cruel and breaking earth” (p. 229). Then, later Gustavo, the son, realizes, “Your grandfather lost everything, his land, his riches, his country. Your father inherited exile” (p. 273). This is the reality of a growing number of our students. Sadly, what Gustavo says is true for too many children: “In the end, you will always be a child of war” (p. 302). I’ll close with a quote that I think is important for all of us who work with children to consider. As Gustavo’s mother struggles with the possibility of losing her son to the draft for the Vietnam War she reflects, “But if I had to make a choice between a country and my son, then I would choose my son. . .I did idealize my children. I thought they were all beautiful enough to save. All of them.” (p. 310). For me, this is a powerful thought. What if all of us who worked in some capacity with children believed they were ALL beautiful enough to save, and we were willing to choose saving them over all else?
For access to the full review and additional resources, check out our Vamos a Leer blog at teachinglatinamericathroughliterature.com.
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