Sandino on the Border

What Critics Say about Marc Zimmerman, his Illusions of Memory series, and this book: "A wonderful writer." Luis Alberto Urrea. "An incredible opus." Dick Goldberg. "Nothing like this series in American fiction." John Beverley. "Wonderfully imaginative and truthful stories." Marta S?nchez.

A Nicaraguan doctor steals his son across the border leaving his estranged wife and his son's traumatized half-brother to fend for themselves until they meet up with Mel, a Jewish American who joins their struggle to win back the lost boy even as they pursue their new lives.

Book One traces Mel's growing immersion in Lena's fight for her lost son even as he becomes father to the boy left behind-a story that takes them to Nicaragua twice, as they become involved with the Sandinista movement and the Revolution. Book Two tells of Lena's family-an uncle who coordinates Sandinista-related border crossings; a mother who smuggles underwear into Mexico City; an aunt who tries to keep her son's family together in L.A.; a son who moves from the Californias to Minnesota; a grandmother who marvels at the world she beholds when she is taken across the border.

All this in the shadow of C?sar Augusto Sandino, Nicaragua's national hero, who hovers over an entire family, in a story roaming from Baja and Southern California to Minneapolis, Chicago, Mexico City, and Managua during a period of cold war and social upheaval.

With Carlos Barberena's haunting prints, Sandino on the Border presents an untold story of the Americas and border life. The book's multi-voiced narrative recalls Faulkner's As I Lay Dying, and the epilogue evokes works by John Keats, Fitzgerald, and Hemingway in a text that also relates to more recent discursive modes and transnational relations. This new editon portrays the Sandinista Revolution's early days and hints at the problems discussed in a striking final note on the Ortega-Murrillo regime.

Marc Zimmerman is U. of Illinois at Chicago and U. of Houston Emeritus Professor in Latin American/Latino Studies, and world cultures and literatures . He worked in Sandinista Nicaragua and has produced several books on Central American, Mexican, Caribbean and Latino themes. His recent work centers on his autofiction series of which this book is a remarkable example.