A fabricated Mexican /

Barely disguised as a novel, this episodic work follows Ricky Coronado from babyhood through his appointment to a university. The youngest in a family of Mexican American farm workers, he recalls in chronologically arranged, often mundane vignettes almost his entire life: watching his mother set her philandering husband's car afire; his drunken father's death (later learned to be a suicide); the arrival of his stepfather and their growing relationship; his failure to make the Little League team; making menudo, a spicy red soup, from boiled tripes and cow's hooves; erecting a greenhouse in the backyard; getting drunk the first time; and so on. A chubby, sensitive kid, Ricky is sometimes picked on because of his light skin and lack of an accent. He flunks out of college because of his behavior but returns years later. He's embarrassed at accepting affirmative action monies, but he is proud of his heritage and decides he's "a fabricated Mexican," one who has made it out of the fields and is "not working physically hard." Generally dull and predictable, this work scarcely scratches the surface. For large multicultural collections.-Ron Antonucci, Hudson Lib. & Historical Soc., Ohio (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.