Published in: November-December 2010 issue.
Madre and I: A Memoir of Our Immigrant Lives
by Guillermo Reyes
University of Wisconsin Press. 278 pages, $18.95
GUILLERMO REYES’ Madre and I: A Memoir of Our Immigrant Lives follows the parallel lives of María, a Chilean single mother, and her gay son Guillermo, who immigrate to the United States in the 1970’s. Their American journey begins on the East Coast, in Maryland and Washington, D.C., and ends on the West Coast, in Los Angeles, where María becomes a maid to Hollywood stars. Highly intimate, mixing poignancy with humor, Reyes’ account exposes the seams that unite the political and the personal.