Publisher's Synopsis
Praise for Marc Zimmerman, his Illusions of Memory autofiction series and this book:
"A wonderful writer." Luis Alberto Urrea. "An incredible opus." Dick Goldberg. "Nothing like his series in contemporary American fiction." John Beverley. "Stories that capture the border's melancholic and magical moments." Carolina Rivera Escamilla. "Deeply sensitive to socio-cultural and ethno-community boundaries." Roberto Márquez. "Wonderfully imaginative and truthful stories." Marta Sánchez. "Some of the best stories literature can offer." Antonio Zavala.
In this new addition to Marc Zimmerman's Illusions of Memory autofiction series, the author problematic Jewish American protagonist, Mel, encounters African and Italian Americans, Mexicans, and Chicanos all in a book that includes some of his richest stories. Here is the San Diego-Tijuana border area and beyond in the 1960s and 70s--a time before the full narcotics and human traffic and overall border crisis of recent years but with elements that foreshadow what is to come.
After a playful and polemical introduction, Part I presents Mel's first San Diego days and his growing connections with the city's African American world in stories that depict multi-ethnic parties, women-chasing, and ghetto theater matters in a period of growing Black empowerment. Part II provides a much larger group of stories mixing reality and fantasy, humor, and pathos, which presents efforts at sex, romance, love, sometimes politics and an overall concern with human connection going from the border area and deep into Mexico. Part III portrays Mel's parents in their Mexican misadventures, featuring his father's Mexican life and death and his mother's reactions to it all, Mel's relation to Chicano and cross-border encounters, his final departure from the border area and final memories of one incident after another taking place in his border years.
Marc Zimmerman holds a Ph.D. in Comparative Literature and an M.A. in Creative Writing. He is Emeritus Professor of Latin American and Latino Studies at the U. of Illinois at Chicago, and of Hispanic Studies and World Cultures and Literatures at the U. of Houston. Director of LACASA Chicago, he has written and edited over forty books, including several works of autofiction.
