Casares expands the clean, tender prose of his debut collection, Brownsville
, into a winning novel. In an American town just north of the Mexican border, the estranged Rosales brothers are equally ambivalent and inwardly volatile. Don Fidencio is snappish, sickly and endearing: he refuses to admit his own incontinence, smokes cigarettes against his nurses' wishes and identifies people, often cruelly, by their physical appearances (such as “The Gringo With The Ugly Finger”). Meanwhile, his widower brother, Celestino, a diabetic, feels “adrift toward the edge of a flat world.” He's slowly drawn out, thanks to his Mexican cleaning woman, Socorro, who travels from “the other side” every day, wishing that the geographical and social borders between them could be “gently... swept aside.” The mysterious reason for the brothers' estrangement forces the three characters to push back from one another outwardly while returning, internally, to their own weaknesses, and their distinct voices pick up the thread of narration so easily that, from even mundane details, it's plain to see how love, borders, death—and most of all, willful ignorance—are part of everyday reawakenings. With Casares's blessing, you can laugh at them all. (Aug.)
