American Orphan

Poet and novelist Baca (When I Walk Through That Door, I Am) traces in this frank if uneven narrative the harrowing journey of a young Chicano man recently released from youth incarceration. Orlando Lucero, released from the Denver Youth Authority after serving seven years for smuggling marijuana, has reunited in Albuquerque with his drug-addled older brother, Camilo, who holds up a 7-Eleven to support his habit. Camilo’s reckless behavior triggers Lucero to assume his alter ego, Ghost Boy, which he developed in juvenile detention to cope with his trauma from being raised in a Catholic orphanage where he was sexually abused. He then flees to rural North Carolina; starts a sexually charged yet emotionally anemic relationship with Lila Chambers, his prison pen pal; and resorts to drug smuggling to make a living. While Baca aptly conveys Orlando’s struggles to go straight, the book is marred by thin characters and overwritten prose (“I fall asleep, but am awakened like jumper cables hitting the battery posts, sparks and smoke, as the plane’s tires thump hard on the runway”). Still, Baca provides an important testament of a life institutionalized. (Mar.)