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Aquaboogie
Straight writes with tenderness and insight about the lives of people from the Westside, a black neighborhood in a large southern California city--but it isn't the California everyone knows or thinks they know.
- GenresFictionShort StoriesRace
196 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1993
About the author
Susan Straight
46 books424 followersSusan Straight's newest novel is "Between Heaven and Here." It is the last in the Rio Seco Trilogy, which began with "A Million Nightingales" and "Take One Candle Light a Room." She has published eight novels, a novel for young readers and a children's book. She has also written essays and articles for numerous national publications, including The New York Times, Los Angeles Times, The Nation and Harper's Magazine, and is a frequent contributor to NPR and Salon.com.
Her story "Mines," first published in Zoetrope All Story, was included in Best American Short Stories 2003. She won a Lannan Literary Award in 2007. She won a 2008 Edgar Allan Poe Award for her short story "The Golden Gopher."
She is a Professor at the University of California, Riverside and lives in Riverside, California.
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Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews
September 9, 2007
Susan Straight was a couple of years behind me at North High ... in her stories are the kids I went to high school with. She also writes essays for Salon and The Nation.
August 19, 2007
I am really enjoying Susan Straight. This was her first, and as the title implies, it's more stories than novel. There's something in these stories that makes me ache for people, and not exactly in a 'trying circumstances' way as much as for the small and great losses everyone experiences. Straight seems particularly interested in the way people lose the cooking and garden-growing and other household practices of their parents and grandparents - survival practices for them, but they became a cultural patrimony. Plus, her stories makes me want to have a greens plant for making collards at home.
August 21, 2015
Unique, to say the least.
Susan Straight is definitely a master of voice, half mimic and half ventriloquist, as the dialogue in here is almost impenetrably authentic. She's white, and blonde, ably depicting characters who are all black or hispanic-- a function of her own environment growing up. But overall she seems more talented as a recorder than a translator. Of course it could be my personal failure to relate to the text, as it revolves around characters in an inner-city setting, when the "crack epidemic" was still going strong. She has some good stories in here, some good lines, and the sort of Winesburg, Ohio structure she used was effective, but I just couldn't get that into it.
Read Toni Morrison first. There, I said it.
Susan Straight is definitely a master of voice, half mimic and half ventriloquist, as the dialogue in here is almost impenetrably authentic. She's white, and blonde, ably depicting characters who are all black or hispanic-- a function of her own environment growing up. But overall she seems more talented as a recorder than a translator. Of course it could be my personal failure to relate to the text, as it revolves around characters in an inner-city setting, when the "crack epidemic" was still going strong. She has some good stories in here, some good lines, and the sort of Winesburg, Ohio structure she used was effective, but I just couldn't get that into it.
Read Toni Morrison first. There, I said it.
April 6, 2013
After spending time with the Antoine and Picard families, I'm continuing to explore Susan Straight's Rio Seco by heading back to her first volume of stories. Straight gives us an entire community to explore and allows us to watch it change before our eyes. She has an incredible gift for finding her characters voices and stories. Looking forward to visiting Rio Seco again.
June 20, 2012
***3.5 stars***
These stories kept getting better and better. Some of the earlier ones, and definitely the last couple, which strayed completely from near-desert community of Rio Seco, felt like space fillers. Still a worthwhile read.
These stories kept getting better and better. Some of the earlier ones, and definitely the last couple, which strayed completely from near-desert community of Rio Seco, felt like space fillers. Still a worthwhile read.
August 26, 2009
This book was required reading in one of my college courses.
April 5, 2013
I tried but couldn't get into her style of writing.
Read
June 7, 2013Poetic .
January 23, 2016
This one was a little difficult for me to get into. But the more I read the more I came to know the characters and appreciate their struggles. This author has a rare talent.
March 8, 2022
Susan Straight composes a beautiful well-thought collection of short stories in her book Aquaboogie. In her story, Nacho, which appears as the first story of her collection and continues in the third story, shows how successful Straight is in diving into the mind of her characters. In the heart of Rio Secco, where most of her characters reside, the reader gets a chance to live inside the mind of Nacho and his true thoughts and feelings. At the same time, the reader gets a chance to visualize all that is happening around Nacho in his challenging part-time job as a janitor, surrounded by racist coworkers. Straight does a phenomenal job carefully building each character with depth, personality, and life. With these skills, each story in Aquaboogie is very unique and captures your interest, leaving you with a taste of each character’s life.
Straight speaks truth into each of her stories. The hardships of the everyday life of black people living in America during the early 90s are displayed in this collection. Considering the story Training, Demone Harris is a young black kid who travels to the other side of town for his education, meanwhile, his broken-down home and family he comes back to insinuates what his life is headed for. By the end of this story, Straight has accomplished her job of reaching deep inside those inner feelings that are kept locked up. A closeness to each character is what you will feel at the end of each story. You will never want the story to end and find yourself begging for more.
These fourteen carefully put-together short stories serve to show the true essence of each character. With stories such as Nacho, Brenda, and Toe Up and Smoke dreaming, Straight aims to squash stereotypes made about her characters by showing their true self and the hardworking mannerisms they possess. In Toe Up and Smoke Dreaming, Darnell works hard every day fighting fires, with also knowing he will never be successful in attaining a permanent job as a black man. The struggles faced with being a skin color darker than your neighbors are evident in each of Straight’s short stories. She dives deep into what makes people uncomfortable. She will have you invested in each character and caring for them, wanting to intervene in their fictional lives.
Straight is exceptionally skilled in her figurative language and imagery. Within each story, you will find yourself imagining every scene. For example, in the story Brenda, Straight shows her use of these skills with the following sentence: “The sky was tinged all brown, like usual, but even the smog seem angry, and the palm trees hanging dusty, sorry-looking…almost everything faded, like the color been drained out” (pg. 60). Her diction, as seen in this line, mimics the feelings that are felt throughout the story. With that, the stories in this collection almost feel like a glimpse into a diary of each character. It is more about situations that are occurring in their life, within a certain time frame, rather than a story that zooms in on one particular idea or concept. The stories and the lives of her characters feel so real and personable, making it even more interesting to the reader.
With internal emotions and thoughts running through each story, Straight writes with intention, depth, and love. The love of each character is seen through their development and their internal thoughts. Each story is different but shares so much. As her readers relate to the characters, the character too relate to each other. She manages to tie all pieces together into one in the most incredible and unique way, showing just how strong the community of Rio Secco is despite the challenges each character faces. With that, Aquaboogie is an amazing recommendation to those looking for something they can relate to or escape to.
Straight speaks truth into each of her stories. The hardships of the everyday life of black people living in America during the early 90s are displayed in this collection. Considering the story Training, Demone Harris is a young black kid who travels to the other side of town for his education, meanwhile, his broken-down home and family he comes back to insinuates what his life is headed for. By the end of this story, Straight has accomplished her job of reaching deep inside those inner feelings that are kept locked up. A closeness to each character is what you will feel at the end of each story. You will never want the story to end and find yourself begging for more.
These fourteen carefully put-together short stories serve to show the true essence of each character. With stories such as Nacho, Brenda, and Toe Up and Smoke dreaming, Straight aims to squash stereotypes made about her characters by showing their true self and the hardworking mannerisms they possess. In Toe Up and Smoke Dreaming, Darnell works hard every day fighting fires, with also knowing he will never be successful in attaining a permanent job as a black man. The struggles faced with being a skin color darker than your neighbors are evident in each of Straight’s short stories. She dives deep into what makes people uncomfortable. She will have you invested in each character and caring for them, wanting to intervene in their fictional lives.
Straight is exceptionally skilled in her figurative language and imagery. Within each story, you will find yourself imagining every scene. For example, in the story Brenda, Straight shows her use of these skills with the following sentence: “The sky was tinged all brown, like usual, but even the smog seem angry, and the palm trees hanging dusty, sorry-looking…almost everything faded, like the color been drained out” (pg. 60). Her diction, as seen in this line, mimics the feelings that are felt throughout the story. With that, the stories in this collection almost feel like a glimpse into a diary of each character. It is more about situations that are occurring in their life, within a certain time frame, rather than a story that zooms in on one particular idea or concept. The stories and the lives of her characters feel so real and personable, making it even more interesting to the reader.
With internal emotions and thoughts running through each story, Straight writes with intention, depth, and love. The love of each character is seen through their development and their internal thoughts. Each story is different but shares so much. As her readers relate to the characters, the character too relate to each other. She manages to tie all pieces together into one in the most incredible and unique way, showing just how strong the community of Rio Secco is despite the challenges each character faces. With that, Aquaboogie is an amazing recommendation to those looking for something they can relate to or escape to.
June 26, 2023
While I liked the realness of these characters, I had a difficult time finishing this book. It's written in a 'how people speak' way that makes it difficult to read at times. Much got lost in translation for me, having to go back and reread many parts.
October 1, 2013
More like snapshots in time... well done.
Displaying 1 - 12 of 12 reviews