La Maravilla

“A powerful and enchanting story… a bridge between North and South America. From the very first sentence I was trapped and could not resist the invitation to cross that bridge.” —Isabel Allende, author of The House of the Spirits

Three thousand years of history and the myths of many cultures, as well as the fates of a dozen unforgettable characters, all collide one hot summer in 1958 in the community of Buckeye Road outside Phoenix. From this desert community blooms a world of marvels spilling out of the adobe homes, tar-paper-shacks, rusted Cadillacs, and battered trailers.

At the center of this rich multicultural community is Beto, who must navigate the challenges of belonging to two worlds, and being torn between the love and fear of both. Guided by his jazz-music loving Spanish grandmother and his Yaqui Indian grandfather, Beto experiences all the richness that this community has to offer: Through food, spirit journeys, and manhood ceremonies, he discovers what it means to reconcile all sides of himself.

“Magic realism in the American Southwest… a wonderful story of cultures clashing and merging… captures the color, language and feel of the small-town South in a manner that is almost astonishing.” —St. Louis Post-DispatchAlfredo Vea was born in Arizona and worked as a migrant farm worker as a child and a young man. He served in Vietnam and after his discharge worked a series of jobs, ranging from truck driver to carnival mechanic, as he put himself through law school. Now a practicing criminal defense attorney, Vea is also the author of two previous novels, La Maravilla and The Silver Cloud Cafe. He lives in San Francisco, California.