The Rain God

Angel Family #1

by Arturo Islas

Already a Southwestern classic as beautiful, subtle and profound as the desert itself, Arturo Islas's The Rain God is a breathtaking masterwork of contemporary literature.

Set in a fictional small town on the Texas-Mexico border, it tells the funny, sad and quietly outrageous saga of the children and grandchildren of Mama Chona, the indomitable matriarch of the Angel clan who fled the bullets and blood of the 1911 revolution for a gringo land of promise.

In bold creative strokes, Islas paints on unforgettable family portrait of souls haunted by ghosts and madness--sinners torn by loves, lusts and dangerous desires. From gentle hearts plagued by violence and epic delusions to a child who con foretell the coming of rain in the sweet scent of angels, here is a rich and poignant tale of outcasts struggling to live and die with dignity ... and to hold onto their past while embracing an unsteady future.

Genres: Fiction, Latinx, LGBT, Historical Fiction, Queer, Novels, School

192 pages, Paperback

First published September 1, 1984

About the author

Arturo Islas, Jr. was an English professor and novelist from El Paso, Texas, whose writing focused on the experience of Chicano cultural duality. He received three degrees from Stanford: a B.A. in 1960, a Masters in 1963 and a Ph.D. in 1971, when he joined the Stanford faculty.

Reviews

[Joselito Honestly and Brilliantly · Rating 5 out of 5]

The only thing I don't like about this novel is that its gay author is already dead. Died in 1991, of complications brought by AIDS, and while at work on just his third novel.

He should have been allowed to finish it and write some more! His was a very unique voice: he has the deft touch of a butterfly, light and subtle, a short, innocent phrase can gently pull your heart from your chest, abruptly but without violence, beating wildly and excitedly in expectation of what comes next. This writer can take you from the past to the present back and forth like he holds time in the palm of his hand, telling a lot by saying so very little. One of the very rare times when I really wanted to re-read a book immediately after finishing it, for it felt that Arturo Islas had agonized for years deciding on each word until he had found the perfect place for each one of them. And I bet so few of us here have heard of this author or this novel before!

'Malcriado"! Why did we lose this jewel of a storyteller so soon?

[Kali Fajardo-Anstine · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE RAIN GOD is an incredibly sophisticated and groundbreaking novel and deserves an enormous audience. The author, Arturo Islas, would only publish two novels before he died from complications of AIDS in 1991. He was the first Chicano to sign a publishing contract with a major house. His work explored the sadness and beauty of the Southwest and was robust in its inclusion of queer Chicano characters. In a letter he wrote a former professor of mine, Margarita Barcelo, Islas said, “next year in the fall of ‘91, Avon will publish paperback editions of both the Rain God and Migrant Souls. I am very happy about this and only hope I live to see them.” Islas died the day after Valentines Day in February of 1991. He wouldn’t live to see his books re-released.

[Paulina · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Rain God was incredible and heartbreaking and I can't stop thinking about it.

If you come from a Mexican family (as I do) you'll know that family relationships can be complicated and unbreakable. So even if you have a fight with a cousin or something unforgivable happens, you still can never be rid of them, they will always be your cousin, your family. Add to that crossing a border into the US and you get very complicated family and cultural dynamics. The Rain of God takes place in a small town near the border of the US and Mexico, where a family (and adopted family of comadres and compadres) live and assimilate to the culture. Assimilation of course also means bending moral codes (or breaking them). Each member of the family has their own complicated story, a story of immigration or a story of love and loss or a story of identity that is rejected by society, plus many more. In the 180 pages that Arturo Islas wrote you get ALL of it.

Imagine a carne asada, where everyone is telling everyone stories, well these are the ones that keep everyone sitting around the back yard drinking and listening to rancheras while the kids are made to go to bed.

There would be trigger warnings for just about everything in this book, violence, hate crimes, and mental and physical abuse so do tread carefully.

This book is painful because it paints a too real picture of the complicated relationships Mexican immigrant families (and their descendants) have with the past, the present and the future of the family, the cultura, and their identity. I saw my own story reflected in some of these pages and it felt like home but also a place I didn't want to get to (emotionally).

So, I do recommend this to everyone, especially if you're an immigrant or come from a Mexican family!

[AC · Rating 5 out of 5]

First read in May. This (Nov.) is therefore a reread from the summer — because now I actually have to teach the book.

This is a wonderful, tender, brilliant book — and I would give it six stars if possible. Some writers have only one book in them. But they are no less for that.

For those readers who are looking for a beautiful, emotionally rich and symbolically deep story, never dull, perfectly paced, complex characters, and flawlessly crafted prose — please take a look at this one.

[M. A. Foster · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Rain God is a personal account of a life-long search for identity and belonging. Mexican-American writer Arturo Islas died of AIDS in 1991. Like many others of his culture, his work was effectively suppressed, due to the fact that major book publishers considered the genre unmarketable, at the time. Islas finally gave up on the publishers in New York and he once stated, “I know that world [of the New York editors]. I went to Stanford with a lot of the [people] who are editors, and it’s a very circumspect and provincial world; they publish their own...”. After turning to an alternative, lesser-known publisher, his novel would sell eleven thousand copies in seven years.

Islas never came out of the closet publicly, however he was not hesitant to write about his experience as a gay Chicano man, albeit, vicariously, through his fictional characters. In the search for identity at the blurred edges of the borderlands and the in-between spaces, mis-embodiment (sometimes expressed as alienation and displacement) of gay Chicano men is a shared phenomenon. The double stigma was tripled for those who contracted AIDS. Being gay meant almost-certain rejection. However, "death by the wrong means" (AIDS) was far worse. In the eyes of the Chicano community, it left an idelible mark not only upon the victim, but also his family and friends.

[Karen (idleutopia_reads) · Rating 5 out of 5]

I have never read a book that explored machismo, homosexuality in a machismo society, colorism, and family dynamics, among a range of other topics and executed these discussions so well and so succinctly. What’s even more impressive is that this family saga is only 192 pages! We follow along the Angel family as they go through events in their life that help to exemplify the topics that Arturo Islas wished to share with the world in 1984. A time when Chicano meant many things and all of them were stereotypes. Arturo Islas brought a Chicano family that went through many of the ups and downs readers are used to in family dramas. There’s tensions, secrets, dynamics that are challenged and revelations that force you to look at the family history differently.
It’s so difficult to put the beauty of this book into words. So here goes why I think you should read it. For me, it raged against machismo in a way that showed how it’s detrimental to both women and men. It showed the internal dislike that colorism has against the people that practice it. How you can come to hate the color of your own skin and base likes and dislikes solely on someone having lighter skin tone than you. It explores how a son can come to almost hate his father when, since a young age, he tries to teach him “how to be a man”. It showed how debilitating hiding emotions can be to men who do feel so many things but are forced to hide them under a veneer of machismo. Most importantly, its the first time I’ve ever read a book that talked about machismo and homosexuality.
It does all of the above by humanizing it in the form of the Angel family. I cried with them, I angered with them and in the end I was truly bruised by the damage that they all went through. This is definitely one of those books that for me felt like I could find many of the things that I have seen mirrored in my own life. It helped me grasp a little bit of a better understanding into my own family. I never grew up with these books so seeing them now and using them as a tool to understand a little bit more of my own culture makes them feel like such a gift. I am truly thankful for this book. It is so beautifully written, tragic and so amazing. I think what made it even more tragic was that this was meant to be a trilogy but sadly Arturo Islas died of AIDS complications as he was writing his third book. I have read some reviews that say that there were to many characters that weren’t fully fledged here and to their point, that may be true. I don’t think you should look into this as a particular character study. This is more the exploration of a United States-Mexican border town, a family and what they represent. As the back writes, “here is a rich and poignant tale of outcasts struggling to live and die with dignity...and to hold onto their past while embracing an unsteady future”.

[lauren :) · Rating 4 out of 5]

and Mama Chona was Tlāloc the whole time…

[Annie Cheng · Rating 4 out of 5]

This really threw my guts onto the operating table

[Mia Guzzo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Islas loves to write an anecdote then make you question whether you missed something while reading or if he just hasn’t explained the backstory. the answer is somehow both.

[Mohamed Hagi · Rating 3 out of 5]

When I first picked it up, I thought it was going to be this "same-old" book about a boy coming to age while battling an identity crisis, but even with that the book focused primarily on the drama of the family. It focused on individual characters and gave the story depth and perspective.“The Rain God” by Arturo Islas has a very serious message to the story. There are a lot of references to religions, especially Catholicism. Throughout the story, there are a lot of references to the so called spirits. It is amazing how certain things happen even though the book claims it to be faithful. Miguel Grande and Juanita make a confusing couple in the book. “The greatest sentimental moment in Mexican culture is the coming together of a man and a woman in holy matrimony.” (PG 55) Miguel Grande is having an affair with Lola. This is not at all what a Catholic believes. Cheating or "committing adultery" is a sin, but Miguel Grande had no intentions of repenting. This came as both shocking and amazing to me. What makes the affair with Lola worse than not being sorry for having the affair is that it is with Juanita’s best friend. It seems unbelievable that Lola would betray her best friend this way when Miguel and Juanita loved each other deeply. All in all, I thought the book was OK. The author's use of description and detail was done exceptionally done well, but the lack of efficiency in the book had me confused and lost. I give this book a 5 out of 10 and recommend it to people wo love reading books on family drama and religion.

[Ben Moody · Rating 5 out of 5]

The late Arturo Islas left a literary legacy that was scant -- only two published novels, and others incomplete. But his first, "The Raid God" reveals his extraordinary talent and unique voice. The novel follows (although non-lineally) three generations of the Angel family, who fled Mexico during the revolution and settled in a border town. The novel shows their gradual integration into the "American" lifestyle, how they come to terms with their mixed identities, and the eccentric, almost surreal nature of their family. It is beautifully written, and an important work in Mexican American literature.

[Juli · Rating 4 out of 5]

Such a lovely book! It took me a little bit to get into it as I wasn't too engaged in the lives of the characters in the beginning. However, as you continue reading, you discover the complexities of the characters: none of them are good and pure nor evil and dirty; they are both good and evil, pure and dirty. It is easy to antagonize many of the characters who have pretty controversial traits. Yet it is much richer to see them as how we all are, as people trying to figure out ourselves, our place in the world, and our future while being constrained by our families, the expectations of who we are supposed to be, and the realities of everyday life that sometimes impede us from obtaining a true realization of ourselves.


My favorite character was definitely JoEl. I saw myself in him, his longing to connect with other people, his lack of faith, and his unwillingness to take bullshit from his family and religion. Such a passionate and sensitive soul. I resonate with his struggles of trying to deal with his realities while also refusing to accept the unfairness of the world around him and ultimately being unable to handle it all, turning to drugs and slowly succumbing to madness. I wish we got more of him, but I also appreciate how briefly he appears in the book, leaving you wondering more about his life and what happened to him after they no longer talk about him.

[Angie Sanchez · Rating 5 out of 5]

A love letter to the desert and all the malcriadas and sinverguenzas out there. Such an incredible and tender interrogation of machismo and colorism woven into this family’s story.

[MD Maio · Rating 5 out of 5]

one of the top 10 books i read in undergrad. a heart wrenching family epic that rivals the great Gabo in my opinion

[Becky · Rating 4 out of 5]

I found it both difficult and also moving the way this book wove back and forth through time and told so many interconnected stories about one family. I loved the writing and the big feelings and fraught family dynamics.

[Norma · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Arturo Islas novel The Rain God is a novel about ancestry and heritage, and how people who exist between along the borders of other cultures create their own culture. The rain god is many things, a complicated symbol of history, family and ancestry, but also life and death.

The rain god as a force emerges into many situations. Take as an example the moment when Mama Chona is nearing death and “Miguel Chico felt the Rain God come into the room;” this shows how the Rain God asserts itself as a force both of chaos and order as it makes its appearance at Mama Chona’s death (179 Islas). The Rain God is the unknowable—but also the thing we are all moving towards.

The rain god is an entity without a conscious, one that does not recognize the perceptions or desires that humanity has. For instance, “[t:]he desert wind tore the leaves from them and Miguel Chico asked if anyone ever watered these trees;” the rain god is unpredictable; it rains when it wants to without asking for permission (9). The rain god cannot be controlled but exists in its own terms.

Border theory, although describing the borders between two cultures, can also be attributed to the people who function as keepers of culture. They bring religious beliefs, their own personal perceptions of life, and take them across borders and instill them to their children. Consider the anonymous photograph that was taken of Mama Chona and Miguel Chico walking in the street, “a foot off the ground;” this captures the migratory image of motion “from this world to the next” (3, 4). To exist on the border is to exist in an uncertain state.

[Wendy Espinoza Cotta · Rating 3 out of 5]

This book hits upon several Mexican-American cultural touchstones: Day of the Dead, the role of compadres, the Catholic religion, indigenous bias, machismo, the Mexican Revolution, border life, etc. This was written by an intelligent author who knew how to develop the "otherness" inherent in Mexican-American border life. The Angel clan shows how a modern Mexican-American family life ebbs and flows with painful memories and even more painful, decisions, and it is agonizing to watch. While heralded as "already a Southwestern classic" and a "masterwork of contemporary literature," I find myself feeling fragmented and needing to re-read parts of this story to temper my own thoughts about the impact of this tale on my Mexican-American psyche. This is complex and nuanced, and the reader will need to work for closure.

[Jenna · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was assigned reading for a course, and was a follow up to Faulkner's family saga GO DOWN, MOSES. It was infinitely easier to read (sorry, Faulkner!) and easier to track the family members and associations. At first, getting used to the very natural (but sometimes confusing) flow of information was tricky, but once immersed in the author's style... I found it very easy to go along with it.

The story is wrenching, in parts. It is about family, what they do for and to each other, and the prejudices that are cultivated within families - and how those play out in its members.

I'm certainly curious to read the next book. Islas intended it to be a trilogy, but sadly died before the third book was completed.

Nonetheless, an overall enjoyable read with some very deep rooted issues worth consideration and exploration.

[Karen Winbourn · Rating 5 out of 5]

A wonderfully written, powerful but subtle, story of several generations of an extended family which fled civil war in Mexico to come live in a border town in the the US. Sad, funny, tragic—all the elements that make up a family’s history. Beautifully told. I started to reread it immediately upon finishing it to capture what I had missed the first time.

[Sheila Rocha · Rating 2 out of 5]

Too short to be an epic novel, too many characters that need to be more fully developed to suffice as a short novel.
There are some good scenes--worth the read--but it lacks completion. Artuto Islas had great promise as a Chicano author, unfortunatley, he passed before reaching his heights.

[Virgowriter (Brad Windhauser) · Rating 4 out of 5]

Engaging family saga that reads more as interlocking stories than a novel—which is not s slight. Author moves through time and scenes well. Most interesting chapters belong to Felix (gay character) and then his son, JoEl).

[Sachin P. · Rating 5 out of 5]

Interesting, well-written exploration of the intersection of culture/family and all the intricacies that accompany love.

[Kristen · Rating 5 out of 5]

Heartbreaking.

Family dynamics truly are complicated. Islas explorations of these complications leaves its reader to reflect on their own.

[Silvia · Rating 3 out of 5]

Chaotic family dynamic that keeps the reader interested. Love reading about people creating boundaries with toxic family members regardless of cultural expectations of blind loyalty.

[W. Stephen Breedlove · Rating 5 out of 5]

THE ANGEL FAMILY

In The Rain God by Arturo Islas, Miguel Chico tells the story of his Mexican American family, the Angels. He begins by describing a photograph taken when he was a child. In the photograph he is walking with Mama Chona, his grandmother, in a border town on the American side. As I read the first two pages, something clicked in my mind. Wait a minute, I thought, this sounds just like a description of the photograph of Arturo Islas and his grandmother that appears in Dancing with Ghosts, the biography of Arturo Islas. I went back and forth between this photograph and Miguel Chico’s description of the photograph in The Rain God. In the real photograph, the grandmother’s hat has three white daisies on it, she is dressed in black, and they both have one foot off the ground, just as Miguel Chico describes them in The Rain God. The photograph is an inspired device to pull the reader into Miguel Chico’s story of his family. This use of the photograph led me to assume that The Rain God and its sequel, Migrant Souls, are the story of Arturo Islas and his family told in fictional terms.

In The Rain God, Miguel Chico never says that he is gay; none of the other characters ever say that he is. The word “homosexual” is used only once and not in reference to him. In Migrant Souls, Miguel Chico’s cousin Josie assumes that he is a lover of men, and he refers to a breakup with a longtime lover. Miguel Chico stays closeted because his gay Uncle Felix, who is married with a family, is murdered by a soldier he picks up. Miguel Chico is an outsider sexually and physically. He had polio as a child, as did Islas, and just before the story begins in The Rain God he had life-saving surgery for an intestinal disease that left him with a colostomy bag and without a rectum, as did Islas. Miguel Chico has the perspective that allows him to tell the truth about his family—and himself.

Mama Chona is the formidable matriarch of the Angel family. Her Catholicism is strict. She hollers “malcriado” at her grandchildren. Although her maiden name is Olmeca, she denies her Indian heritage and insists on dressing and behaving as if she were a pure Spanish lady. Mama Chona rules the Angel family. The scene in The Rain God that helped me sympathize with Mama Chona is the scene where she and Miguel Chico are downtown and walk by a run-down fountain. I’ll always wonder if this scene is based on an actual event that occurred the day that the photograph of Islas and his grandmother was taken. “’You should have seen it years ago, Miguelito!’ There was a rare tone of affection in her voice, and she was looking at him strangely. ‘There is a fountain in San Miguel de Allende,’ she added, then stopped. He did not understand. Mama Chona took his hand, as she always did when they were among strangers. No one was going to shoot this child in the streets.” A few pages before this vignette, there is a brief description of the death of Mama Chona’s firstborn, also named Miguel. He is shot and killed by the fountain in San Migel de Allende during the Mexican Revolution. “Mama Chona never forgave Mexico for the death of her firstborn.” Islas never denies his characters their humanity and dignity. The comment, “There was a rare tone of affection in her voice,” is telling.

The Rain God at only 180 pages is rich with colorful characters. The Angel family is a large extended family. Miguel Chico seems to be the narrator who keeps the story going, but the voice, similar to Migrant Souls, varies from different characters’ points of view. The narrative goes back and forth in time, events flow in and out of each other. That’s what kept me reading. Once I understood how Islas was telling his story, I knew there would be a surprise every time I turned the page. I wasn’t disappointed. Islas’s writing style in The Rain God is dry and abrupt. It mirrors the desert landscape in which his characters live. In spite of his brevity, I never felt that Islas shortchanged me. Miguel Chico and all of the other colorful characters, too many to name, stayed in my mind after I finished. It is impossible to separate Miguel Chico from his creator Arturo Islas. I had a wonderful journey with both of these admirable men.

Arturo Islas was lost to AIDS in 1991 at the age of 52.

[Ari · Rating 3 out of 5]

Islas tells the story of the Angel family by focusing each chapter on a different family member. He closes loops left open about the life of one family member by circling back from the perspective of a different member in a later chapter. In this way, the main character of the book becomes the family over any one person. This structure also sometimes makes the book difficult to read because the narrative’s focus meanders onto different episodes or time periods in the family’s life. This broad focus was part of the book’s point; it just wasn’t always easy from a normal reader’s perspective to track the organization within each chapter. It would have been great to read this book in a college class to unpack more of its meaning. While there were aspects of this book I loved, I still gave it three stars because I felt like it could have used another round or two of editing to tighten up some of the descriptions.

[The Atlantic]

"Widely considered a masterpiece, 'The Rain God' is taught in many literature and Chicano-studies classes across the country for its groundbreaking portrait of the central family. The novel’s matriarch was a young woman in Mexico when her firstborn, a brilliant university student, was gunned down in San Miguel de Allende during the Mexican Revolution. The Angel family is thrust north to the desert. Readers receive an intimate glimpse of this web of children and grandchildren, friends, and neighbors. In vivid realist scenes, this masterwork of American literature touches on themes of border consciousness, queerness, and the inescapable finality of death." — Kali Fajardo-Anstine

https://www.theatlantic.com/books/arc...

[Erin Mcleod]

I purchased this at the recommendation of writer Natalie Goldbert a while back and enjoyed it thoroughly. Islas's writing gave me pause many a time, and his concerns about the impact of Puritanism on Mexican tradition and identity was close to my own heart. Colonial influences are also documented through this intergenerational tale of people struggling to confer self and navigate under both. Many of the characters have gifts and intelligences suppressed by mainstream North American influences and it feels like he is trying to document some things before they disappear. I wish he had been able to write more but would definitely welcome the chance to read his second book. He was a poet as well as a novelist. Strongly Recommended.

[Dave Rush · Rating 5 out of 5]

“The Rain God” is a masterpiece! Woven across time, Islas introduces the Angel family, a Mexican-American clan whose matriarch is Mama Chona. Chona, a subtlety racist, passive aggressive, Roman-Catholic, is hilariously human. Where on one hand she is loving and wise, there is also the abusive tendencies that lead to the moral detriment of her family. In all of the flaws are strange fortunes. Every horror and act of vulgarity creates chaos but also strange catharsis for the Angels. Just when their worlds are falling apart, a strange tragedy acts as a respite and brings forward moments of family bonding. Heartfelt and tender, honest and vulnerable, this chronicle of a family is wholesome and genuine. Showcasing the best of the American dream!

[John Benson · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a semi-autobiographical novel of the life of an extended Mexican-American family living along the Mexican border (seems like El Paso, but it doesn't say) and their different struggles with the church, education and sexuality. The character that fits the author the most is Miguel Angel or Miguel Chico. This book brings out the different family members and their struggles well but does not seem to have an overlying plot and the ending seems rather abrupt. I think Arturo Islas planned to write a trilogy about his family, but he died of AIDS in 1991, before he could publish the third novel. This is the first of the trilogy.