The Stone World

Translator and memoirist Agee (In the House of My Fear) delivers a tender and potent saga of an American boy who grows up in mid-20th-century Mexico. Peter Vogelsang is raised by his musician mother, Martha, and stepfather, Bruno, a German writer. He spends his days exploring his pastoral neighborhood, playing war with his best friend Aron, and hanging out with the family’s housekeeper, Zita, who regales him with stories of Mexican folklore and the power of religion. As Bruno longs to return to Germany with his family despite it being left “in ruins” by the war, and Zita’s beau’s affinity for labor activism lands him in jail, Peter picks up difficult lessons about family and love. Larger events threaten his future in Mexico, though, as unionized railroad workers begin striking, a revolution simmers, and a tempting offer to relocate abroad materializes. Agee’s lyrical prose glides the reader through defining moments of love, friendship, and maturity as Peter comes to cherish his foreign cultural surroundings, such as when he embraces an improvisational performance of “Las Mañanitas” on pedal steel that “turned into a drone that rose and fell like long slow waves.” The author does a fine job presenting an era of unrest, both for a boy and for a country. (Feb.)