Growing Through the Ugly

By Diego Vazquez, Jr.

Book Overview

Growing Through the Ugly begins : "This is my first day of being dead but I want to return to my abuelita's house." Even though the protagonist, Buzzy Digit, a child-turned-soldier, is dead, his memory is still alive. In lyrical, colorful, and haunting prose, drawing on elements of magic realism, we are transported to the 1960s town of El Paso, Texas, where we relive Buzzy's memories of his life with his extended family on the border between Mexico and America. The border where people speak two languages. Abandoned first by his father, then by his mother, and growing up in an erotically charged household filled with cousins, aunts, and uncles, Buzzy's world is defined by loss, loneliness, and sexual confusion. Eventually Buzzy falls in love with his destructive cousin Red, and finds that his only escape from the claustrophobia of home is what might make him a hero--or kill him: the war in Vietnam.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0393039633
• ISBN13: 9780393039634
• Release Date: February 1997
• Publisher: W. W. Norton & Company
• Length: 208 Pages
• Weight: 0.80 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.3" x 8.1"

Customer Reviews

Excellent coming of age book with great characters

The story is funny and sad at the same time. The small boy is not too sure of why his parents left and also of his own sexual orientation. Growing up mostly with the help of his grandmother and his cousin Red, he is able to finally find himself and make sense of the absurdities that life throws in our path. A good combination of boy's adventures with a touch of emmigrant fiction, very good.