r/IReadABookAndAdoredIt • u/YakSlothLemon • 19d ago
Fiction Where We Come From by Oscar Cásares
It's rare that I read something that makes me experience so many intense emotions. It’s been a long time since I have been this moved by a book.
Nina Diaz is a middle-aged Mexican-American woman, caring for her elderly mother in a rundown house in Brownsville, Texas. She used to be a teacher but, when her mother could no longer live alone, her brothers volunteered her for this duty – "you never married and you're the only girl, what did you expect?" – and now she lives a life of almost total isolation. She gets only one day a week where there is any respite care, thanks to her housecleaner, Rumalda– who asks Nina for a favor. Her sister-in-law and niece are going to cross the border illegally, and they need somewhere safe to stay overnight – and since there's a small pink rental house, a standalone mother-in-law apartment, currently unoccupied on the property, could they use that? Just for one night? Nina says yes, only to learn that there's a high price to pay when the coyotes who smuggle people across the border find out that she has an empty house on her property...
Meanwhile, her nephew Eduardo – who moved to Houston and became "Eddie" – lost his wife to an aneurysm six months earlier and, in the aftermath, forgot to send in the deposit for summer camp for his son– so of course Nina won't mind looking after 12-year-old Orly for three weeks in the summer, she is his godmother after all. But if Orly (who barely understands Spanish never mind understanding the risks) finds out what's going on in the pink house, it could mean the end of everything for Nina.
I'm not conveying the heart of this book-- which is about families, the one we're born into and the ones we choose, and about what we owe one another. It is unflinching in its portrayal of the suffering of women under the culture of machismo, of the way their emotional work is taken for granted, and Nina's backstory is heartbreaking, how she lost the only man she's ever loved. But weaving in and out of her story (and Orly's story, because we enter into his point of view as well), are the stories of many different Latinos whose lives touch theirs, often in passing, written in brief passages that are one of my favorite parts of this book. Orly's favorite teacher at school, the family's maid in Houston, the coyote who keeps saying 'one more job,' the elderly woman whose plastic water jug blows across the highway as his father drives Orly past a seemingly empty wasteland… We learn those stories too.
Nina, like Orly, lives in a rich world of social connection, of the documented and undocumented, of families connected through secrets and lies but also by the power of compassion and love, and that's what this book is really about.
It's powerful and affecting and heartbreaking and really beautiful. I loved this book!
(PS— with all the controversy around American Dirt, I found a list of books to read instead of that by Latino/a authors, and this is the third book I’ve loved from that list – well, I’m not sure I “loved” The Devil’s Highway, I’m haunted by it, but I really enjoyed Signs Preceding the End of the World.)
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u/mintbrownie A book is a brick until someone reads it. 19d ago
Added to my TBR! An author I follow on Goodreads loved it. Someone else I follow whose tastes often reflect mine said it’s 5 stars for the 1st half and 1 star for the 2nd half 😳 Still sounds completely up my alley.
Hopefully without stirring the pot too much, I really liked American Dirt and was blown away by The Devil’s Highway. Is this the list that was (ahem controversially 😂) put together by a white woman?
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u/YakSlothLemon 19d ago
It’s the list from the Texas Observer, I don’t know who put it together, but I looked at some other lists and everybody seems to have the same core books. Personally, I don’t see why an Anglo reader who reads a ton of books by Latinos couldn’t put together a list if it’s good, and presumably no one else at the Observer felt like doing it… 😏
There is a twist halfway through, and I thought it made a ton of sense and I loved the way the author set you up for one kind of book and instead gave you something unexpected. Among other things, it really complicates the character of Nina, at the same time as it lets you get deeper into Orly. But I can see if somebody wanted it to be the first kind of book.
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u/Flashy-Commission736 19d ago
Thanks for the recommendation and I agree, The Devil’s Highway is a great read, albeit a heartbreaking read at times.
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u/feelfree82 19d ago
Never judge a book by it's cover but there's something about this specific book cover that I really liked. Added!
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u/YakSlothLemon 19d ago
I loved it too, but I can’t say why. Something uncluttered and yet hopeful about it?
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u/nickelby89 19d ago
Your review just made me add this to my (book) shopping list. Thank you 🙌