Literary Fiction by People of Color discussion

Our Discussion book for October is Dagoberto Gilb's coming-of-age novel, The Flowers. The discussion will begin here on October 1. The NYT review of this book can be found at this link:

http://www.nytimes.com/2008/03/16/boo...

Here's some biographical information about the author:

Dagoberto Gilb was born in the city of Los Angeles, his mother a Mexican who crossed the border illegally, and his father a Spanish-speaking Anglo raised in East Los Angeles. He attended several junior colleges until he transferred to the University of California, Santa Barbara, where he studied philosophy and religion and graduated with both bachelor's and master's degrees. After that, he began his life as a construction worker, migrating back and forth from Los Angeles and El Paso. A father, he eventually joined the union in Los Angeles; a member of the United Brotherhood of Carpenters and Joiners, he became a class-A journeyman carpenter, and his employment for the next twelve years was on high-rise buildings.

Gilb's first publication was a small press chapbook out of El Paso, Winners on the Pass Line and Other Stories, which came after he won his first literary prize, the James D. Phelan Award from the San Francisco Foundation. Gilb went on to earn more recognition, including a National Endowment for the Arts Fellowship and the Texas Institute of Letters' Dobie Paisano Fellowship.

The Magic of Blood was first published not in New York, but in New Mexico, and, defying expectations, won the 1994 PEN/Hemingway Award, the Texas Institute of Letters Award for Fiction, and was a finalist for the PEN Faulkner Award. The book is now considered a classic not only of Chicano literature but of the American Southwest.

The Last Known Residence of Mickey Acuna was A New York Times Notable Book of the Year.

Woodcuts of Women is a collection of stories about men obsessed with women. Stories in this volume had been published in The Threepenny Review, Ploughshares, The New Yorker, and Doubletake.

With Gritos, most of Gilb's published essays are collected into one volume. They are pieces written for The New Yorker, Harpers, The Texas Observer, Carpenter, The Nation, New York Times, San Francisco Chronicle, Los Angeles Times, Washington Post; two stories were included in The Best American Essays series. Some of his most intimate were written over two years as a commentator for the National Public Radio program, "Fresh Air." "Gritos" was selected as a finalist for the 2004 National Book Critics Circle Award.

Gilb published, as its editor, Hecho en Tejas An Anthology of Texas Mexican Literature

Reviews in the New York Times, Washington Post, Los Angeles Times and numerous others praised his most recent novel, The Flowers. The San Francisco Chronicle named it one of the best books of 2008.

Dagoberto Gilb's work has been translated into French, Italian, Japanese, German, Spanish, and Dutch. Anthologized in many literary and college composition textbooks, his fiction and nonfiction is taught in Chicano, Latino, American, and Western literature courses. His work has been honored by national prizes, such as the Whiting Writers' Award and the John Simon Guggenheim Fellowship, and recognized through the El Paso Writer's Hall of Fame, the Library of Congress Archive of Hispanic Literature on Tape, and the Texas Book Festival's Bookend Award for Ongoing Literary Achievement.

He lives in Austin, Texas. He has been a visiting writer at the University of Texas at Austin, University of Wyoming, University of Arizona, Vassar, and Cal State Fresno. He was a tenured professor in the Creative Writing Program at Texas State University, in San Marcos, Texas, and has joined the faculty of the University of Houston-Victoria as a writer-in-residence and professor of Latino studies.

There's and interesting interview with him from P.O.V.'s Borders, a Web-only series on PBS Online. He's an interesting guy!

http://www.pbs.org/pov/pov2002/border...

Have fun!

Hello friends, in preparation for our discussion that starts tomorrow. I found this piece from the NY Daily News on Dagoberto Gilb where he discusses The Flowers and provides some answers (and raises some questions) you may have about the book. As Wilhelmina previously said, he's one interesting guy. Hope you enjoy!

http://www.nydailynews.com/latino/200...

Greetings All! Hope you all had an opportunity to read Dagoberto Gilb’s ‘The Flowers’ Let’s begin…

I really enjoyed this book primarily for the authentic voice of the protagonist, Sonny Bravo, as well as the setting which I presumed to be Los Angeles in the early 90’s. Gilb paints a startling and vivid coming-of-age story as Sonny adapts to his new environment and becomes immersed in the lives of the residents of Los Flores.

As much as I enjoyed the book, a problem for me was the author’s decision to abundantly incorporate Spanish phrases in the story. These phrases were liberally spread throughout the book and consequently detracted from the story to a degree. I found myself on more than one occasion referring to a Spanish – English Dictionary to figure out what was going on at times. That being said, Glib’s unique story and the flawed, realism of the characters is compelling and I feel compensates for this distraction.

So, before delving too deeply into the more complex issues of race, religion, politics etc… What is your impression of the book? Did the Spanish in the book detract in any way from your reading experience? What about his unusual writing style of using run-on sentences, fragments, etc..?

Take it away…

just read the first few pages so this is gonna be lame, but i wanted to say that the style is great. at first i was like, ugh, copy-editing these days is not how it used to be. then i caught on. i love this kid's voice! and the spanish doesn't bother me -- though i must say that i understand it, because my native language is italian, so i understand it even if i don't know it (if you see what i mean). i wonder how i'd feel if the author had put chinese sentences in there, with chinese characters... hmmm. i think that would have been cool. because there will always be SOMEONE who DOES understand it, you know. just like in the movies, when there is a bit of dialogue in italian because matt-damon/daniel-craig/insert-action-actor-here happens to be in venice or rome, and there are no subtitles, and i think, "i'm one of the few people in america who understand this." it makes me feel (irrationally, sillily) SO good. so i guess if you are a spanish speaker, the spanish will make you feel good, which is cool by me because spanish speakers don't get a lot of feel-good from the establishment here in the great us of a. also, in aforementioned films, i'm very alert to all the mistakes the filmmakers make, for instance using actors who speak with a southern accent in the north. so i guess the spanish speaker who reads this book gets, not only the homage of having his or her language used in an "american" book, but also the pleasure of verifying the authenticity of it -- scoffing if the language is inauthentic, feeling groovy if the author nails it. in other words, the use of the spanish gives the spanish speaker a sense of competence and authority. this seems pretty cool to me. finally -- and then i'm going to shut up -- the spanish speaker may feel that the spanish is wrong, without realizing that the spanglish spoken in l.a. is not the same spanglish spoken in santa fe or in miami or in new york. etc. etc.

i feel i'm speaking like sonny bravo, or maybe i'm just punch drunk with tiredness. good topic to raise at the beginning of the conversaton, columbus!

I also thought that the Spanish phrases enhanced instead of taking away from the narrative flow of the book. And then it was mostly only parts of sentences in Spanish making it much easier to get the drift of things without knowing the meaning of each word. This was much easier than Junot Diaz's book which sometimes contained whole paragraphs and sections in Spanish but still managed to win a Pulitzer. Its funny you should mention, Jo, about the different types of Spanish spoken because Sonny, in a very funny passage, tackles that very thing directly commenting that second generation Mexicans in LA speak a Spanish unrecognizable in Mexico.

Great comments Jo/William! How ironic that you should mention Diaz’s “A Brief Wondrous Life….” I thought about that book also while reading The Flowers. I haven’t read Diaz’s book myself, but I recalled how people became so frustrated with the Spanish colloquialism (sp) and footnotes used throughout the book that it doused the enthusiasm for the book. My problems with The Flowers are fairly insignificant in the whole scheme of things. Yes, it did break the flow of the book, slightly. But, the book was so engaging that it superseded this small infraction.

Does anyone else have anything to say on this? What was your impression of the book?

read some more today and what i read made me sad. this is all for now. no, wait, i have a question: why are all books sad?

I hope this gets through - I'm having computer problems. The language didn't bother me either and for the same reason as Bill - Junot Diaz. Diaz says that he wanted to include Spanish phrases without explanation because that is the experience in reverse for Spanish-speaking people in this country. They listen, catch some of the conversation, but do not catch all of the words. They are able to catch enough to follow the stream of thought, as are we when we read Diaz and Gilb. After all, does it matter which profane word is being used as long as you can tell in context that it is one? :)

Great start, Columbus!

I just picked this up today, and so far I really like it. Hope to join in when I get a little farther along.

I'm about two thirds through the book and I am also really enjoying it. Two things that stand out to me are that its seems obvious that Sonny is headed to either salvation or damnation and I keep reading to see what types of choices he's gonna make and which road he'll take. I've come to a part where he seems to have made a irreversible decision and I can't wait to see how it plays out. And the other is the interior life of Sonny. I live with an adolescent of the same age and I often wonder whats behind the sometimes lack of communication and seeming sullenness. Sonny behaves at times very similarly. Though Sonny gives short shrift to most adults he certainly is not without imagination and aspirations. This book is unusual in that most speak about teens and young adults..this speaks from a young adult viewpoint.

I was fascinated by the way that Sonny's brain let him escape into a world of light and color. A form of synesthesia, perhaps?

I want to encourage those who are finding the beginning of this book to be a bit slow to hang in with it. I had a very hard time getting into this book, but after a slow beginning, it does become compelling.

Looking at reviews of this book, I ran into this statement from Eric Miles Williamson in the San Francisco Chronicle:

There's not much of a plot, and there's not supposed to be. The ending isn't really an ending, and the beginning is merely where the narration starts. The events in the book don't link together causally, there aren't cliff-hanger chapter endings and neat mini-resolutions, and there are no life-shattering revelations. "The Flowers" is just a period in a kid's life. The events portrayed in the novel - the violence, the racism, the sordid beauty and the sadness - these things are just the norm for Sonny.

I thought that this description was right on point.

http://www.sfgate.com/cgi-bin/article...

Hi all,

Finished a bit after the start of the discussion and was afraid to come in, in case their were spoilers. I should have just jumped right in with first impressions, I see!

Anyway, no the Spanish didn't bother me, but I also understood it. It seemed natural, like exactly what would happen in the young man's life, so it was essential to the narrative. It's a good question though to take it to a completely unfamiliar language like Mandarin. Would that have interrupted my flow? I don't know. I recently read The Name of the Rose Including Postscript and the 13th century monks devolve into whole conversations in Latin. I didn't come close to understanding every word, but I do think it was essential to the feel of the piece, and in the same way, I think the Spanish was necessary here. Yes, it was similar to The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao, I also didn't have a problem with the language in that book. But isn't saying that you're more accepting of it in Gilb's work because of Diaz like saying you're more accepting of Jimi Hendrix because of something Lenny Kravitz did? I love them both, but one has clearly been blazing the trail for a bit longer. Imperfect analogy, but you see what I'm saying?

Any-whoodle. I truly appreciate the slice of life story. Mina, you're right that description of the plot or lack thereof seems dead on point. I think this is how we live our lives and the beginnings and endings of books are so artificial sometimes. But, aargh. I want to know what happens to Sonny! Is this a hopeful tale or a doomed one?

Great comments everyone! Rashida, I especially liked the analogy you made with the Umberto Eco novel, and how the Latin was essential to the piece. I think more than anything not knowing Spanish just made me frustrated and provided one more reason why I should learn it. Urghhh! If anyone else would like to comment on this, please jump right in…

I was fascinated how Gilb used the city in telling this story. You could feel the tension living inside these characters and the city boiling with anger. I am reminded at how Woody Allen and Scorsese so effectively used NYC in their movies and how the city becomes another character. Awesome! Although, the location is never mentioned, one can widely assume this to be L.A. What benefit(s) would the author gain (if any) by not naming the city outright? Would NYC or Chicago or any other metropolis work in place of Los Angeles?

I don't think that any other city would work especially since the LA riots play such a central part inthe latter half of the book. I think that a central theme of this book is the duality, nee plurality of cultures and conventions of both second generation immigrants and all of us. Sonny's ability to straddle Mexican and Anglo culture as he weaves his way through his life is effortless. Less so for Cloyd who picks the wrong gender for the sign for his apartment and gives the book its ironic title. Cloyd and Bud are also clueless racists who don't even realize that the tenent they rail against is an albino Black man. And all their shouting about preventing Blacks from renting is for naught. While Bud and Cloyd try to build a fence against the Black and immigrant horde everyone else in the book wears or sheds their cultures like a second skin. I think the scene of the two Blacks looking for authenic Mexican food in the bowling ally and Sonny advising them to try the hamburgers was priceless. Gilb also plays against stereotype when he focuses on the nerdy twins..Just as Diaz did with Oscar Wao..its as if to say despite all the gang banger drug dealer images of hispanics in movies and on television we are just like you with bookworms, niave and studious adolescents.

I have not read the comments posted previously yet. However, I read a few pages and asking, why are there so many grammatical errors...and bored. I will slow down since I am a fast reader and see if I am missing something in the first few pages of this book.

Wilhelmina wrote: "I was fascinated by the way that Sonny's brain let him escape into a world of light and color. A form of synesthesia, perhaps?

I want to encourage those who are finding the beginning of this book ..."

yes it slow. i will try to keep going.

Hang in there, Adrienna!

I was a bit baffled by the inability of the characters in this book to differentiate between a black man with albinism and a white person. Admittedly, I am not unbiased on this subject - my dear husband has albinism - but growing up in DC, I knew black people with albinism and they certainly never looked white to me. Did this seem odd to anyone else? I figured out that Pink was Black with albinism in about 2 seconds reading the book.

Yeah...that was pretty much the only real false note of the book to me...I think that even the most dense White folks, and Bud and Cloyd certainly are dense, would recognize an albino Black man when they saw one. But on the other hand I think that here again Gilb is playing with our cultural and racial identities.

Adrienna, I don't think you're alone in finding the book a bit slow in the beginning. Stay the course, I think you might find it rewarding in the end. Then again…...

William: Interesting you should bring up the L.A. riots. I just located this interview Gilb gave w/New West Books & Writers where he discusses that in particular. Kind of leaves everything up to interpretation:

NW: Some reviews have said that the skirmishes you include in The Flowers were from the L.A. riots of 1992, but you don’t indicate this specifically. Did you have a specific place and time in mind?

DG: The only reviewer who said this was the one in the New York Times Book Review (she also judged me, with equal and more slandering inaccuracy, as a literary “stereotyper” of women, like that, not considering that the male characters have an equivalent set of troubled adjectives, which those who aren’t projecting their own stereotyping prejudice might recognize as the social backdrop of The Flowers). Though it is not brought up in the book for both willful “arty” reasons (maybe dumb!) and also for what I thought was the novel’s internal demand, anyone who’s from Los Angeles neighborhoods would recognize the ‘65 Watts Riot, which it is, and, of course, is not. I didn’t want this to be considered a “historical” novel, so I admit that it weirdly pleases me that it’s not clearly recognized—it’s not necessary to know. Exactly what I wanted, for better or worse.

Full interview: http://www.newwest.net/topic/article/...

Was it so far fetched they wouldn't have recognized Pink as a black man? It might have been a point about the stratification and de facto segregation that still runs rampant throughout the country (especially if we're playing with the idea of time period, here. Is it 60s, 90s, does it matter?) How often has albinism been portrayed in the media? When you think of popular culture representation of African Americans, is this an image that you can ever recall seeing? So what would Bud's and Cloyd's previous exposure to a person like this have been? And with their narrow minded views of the nature of black folks, is it that outrageous to think they never would have imagined Pink's racial identity? It would be just as impossible for a black man to have this skin color as it would be for him to be a university professor.

I found Nica's desire to be anything other than what she was heartbreaking. What did folks think of her character? Was Sonny's immediate devotion to her understandable to you?

I know that, growing up in DC, I was certainly exposed to a greater variety of people, especially Black folks, than most people, but how do you ignore all other criteria and only consider skin color? It's hard for me to picture.

Yeah Rashida you make a valid point..just one I cant run with...unless you live under a rock you've seen an albino...but this reminds me of the recent (play/book/movie??) of the the South African woman born of interracial parents with completely white skin but totally negroid features...what is one to do??
The more I think about this book the better I like it...
Nica, unfortunately, is a lost soul...just like the ones I saw on last weeks episode of Tyra, (I was channel surfing and got distracted!) when I saw Black women BLEACHING their toddlers skin so that they would have,(they thought)a better life.
Sonny's puppy love devotion to Nica seemed perfect to me..Just like any teenage boy would have; that one anchor in the face of all other obstacles....But what do readers think of the stolen money? To me it was a pivotal plot twist that remained unresolved... as Rashida says..I want to know what happens to Sonny! Is this a hopeful tale or a doomed one?

The money, to me, was very logical. He was living a chaotic life over which he had no control. Taking the money gave him a sense of control, something that he alone knew about and possessed. Sort of like young women who have eating disorders because it's the only area of control they have.

I agree, Bill. This book grows on you. I was waiting to see what you gentlemen said about Sonny and Nica. I agree that it was a typical teenage boy attraction with the added princess-held-captive-in-the-tower aspect. What can he do but rescue the princess?

Bill, if someone had told you back in 1972 that, in 2009, you'd be watching black women talking about bleaching their toddlers' skin on TV, what would you have said?

I didn't "watch" it.! It was left on Tyra by mistake! (smile)...no, short of the outright coonery daily on Maury and Springer it was the most repulsive thing I've seen in a long while..I guess its going to take a lot more than JBs "Black and Proud" and and an Afro pick to get a minority to feel its worth in an incessant majority view of beauty and cultural superiority. Didn't think that Hispanics like Nica were so susceptible to the same traps.
(Mina,in 72 I was bangin drums, handing out flyers and agitating in Malcolm X park so you know that I'm discombobulated!)

Columbus wrote: "Greetings All! Hope you all had an opportunity to read Dagoberto Gilb’s ‘The Flowers’ Let’s begin…

I really enjoyed this book primarily for the authentic voice of the protagonist, Sonny Bravo,..."

I'm only a few pages in myself, and I am not an excellent Spanish speaker, but I love how the LA Chicano Spanish contrasts with the Dominicanismos in 'Oscar Wao' by Junot Diaz. Hispanics / Latinos = not a monolith. Who knew? Somebody alert politicians...

Hey, Bill, I was the tall young woman wearing African clothing and holding the wild 2-year-old boy in the dashiki to whom you probably handed the flyer. We practically lived in Malcolm X park.

Funny, Heather, and very, very true!

The relationship between Sonny and his mother although quite amusing at times was rather complicated and at times strained. Again, I applaud the author for creating multi-dimensional characters and highlighting the alienation among them. What did you think of the relationship between Sonny and Silvia and how it changed –if at all – pre/post marriage? Is Silvia, along with the other females in the book, stereotypes?

Incidentally, the stereotype question was raised for two reasons: (1) several reviews of the book brought up a possible vapidness or less than ideal qualities of the female characters in relation to the male characters in the book, (2) A Latina friend swears that her culture,although improving, has a higher propensity of misogyny than any other culture possibly in the world. A generalization likely and quite questionable but begs for a debate nonetheless.

I think if anything (and I'm not saying this is necessarily the case), the stereotype that is presented is that of the relationships between men and women, not the women themselves. Just as the adults had a hard time understanding the inner life of Sonny, I don't think he would ever quite understand the motivations of his mother- but this doesn't mean she isn't in a complex character. Why would she enter into the relationship with Cloyd? What are her past experiences, current fears, and even goals for her son that she saw this relationship that she clearly had her own doubts about as the best option for them?

Similarly with Cindy- I thought she was incredibly complex as a person, though Sonny wouldn't have access to the knowledge of her complexity and so in the narrative as presented, her relationship with him and with her husband might come as flat, misogynistic, and perhaps stereotypical.

I think Mina and Bill's analysis of the Nica relationship fits right in with this, too.

Apparently the relationship between Sonny and his mother mirrors that of Gilb and his mother. He wrote an essay in the New Yorker about her in 2000 called "I Knew She Was Beautiful." A review of The Flowers in the Washington Post talks about it:

http://www.washingtonpost.com/wp-dyn/...

From the article:

Mama Gilb, the essay revealed, was a looker who modeled clothes for department stores, married several times and largely neglected her only son. Over the years, she also developed a taste for alcohol; liver problems eventually sent her to the emergency room. It was then that Gilb discovered, after years of estrangement, that the strongest emotions he felt for her were pride, forgiveness and love.

wow. great thread! i am half-way through and i just want to say that i figured out that pink was an african american albino pretty quickly, but also that, as a while person, i felt tremendously proud of it. are you guys kidding about white people using skin color as the only criterion to decide whether someone is white or black? of course they (we?) do! they don't know anything else. also, we live in a totally segregated society, and exposure to other races is entirely institutionally controlled. i think most white people know nothing about black people -- and sorry about the generalization, but i'm afraid it's true. how could it be otherwise? not only are we demographically segregated, but the movies we watch and books we read are segregated too.

today i read about sonny's sexual encounter with cindy and was pretty impressed by the way he owns and is comfortable with his sexuality. being seduced and possibly humiliated by cindy doesn't shame or traumatize him at all. he simply likes it.

i really love this kid's voice. he's awesome.

haven't really been exposed to cindy enough, but, complexity-wise, it seems to me that silvia is totally there. she's a tremendously complex character, and since we see her through the eyes of her son, entirely heartbreaking. these two are the loneliest mother-son couple on earth.

jo wrote:"these two are the loneliest mother-son couple on earth."

Absolutely true.

Mina..its a good possibility that I did hand you a flyer or maybe chant with you in a drum circle in Malcolm X park in the 70's. Seemed to be a rally every weekend and I lived across the street. You were the Angela Davis look a like?

Sonny and his mothers lives get more hectic and out of control as the book progresses. Sonny wants to but is powerless to stop his mothers spiral. He, from the beginning, can't understand why she married a man she did not love and recognizes that it can only lead to trouble. As Silvia starts leaving the house and the marriage disintegrates, as she begins to drink more heavily, Sonny reaches out for things he can control. Adopting a rock that will give him the protection that his mother no longer provides or cares about. It seems to me that just as we know that he marriage to Cloyd won't last, that her relationship with Sonny is also becoming more distant and dying even though they still very much love each other.

i think there are signs of neglect and indifference to sonny on silvia's part from day one.

Close enough, Bill! I can hear the drumming now. I lived in Mount Pleasant at the time and walked down to the park with my son on my back. I was also around the corner at the Center for Black Education.

Silvia just was not meant to be a mother. Sonny had to find his own way. I do believe that they loved each other, but Sonny had to survive on his own. Silvia just seemed to be trying to squeeze herself into an image of a life that just did not fit.

sonny's guilelessness in the face of horror (yes, horror. he is a neglected and abused child) is immensely beguiling. and his voice... lovely. i LOVE that he never says "my" bedroom. he uses language to refashion reality.

It must’ve been difficult for Gilb to write this story with his mother in mind - warts and all. The urge to write a sympathetic portrayal of her must’ve been great. But, the little I’ve read about him and his interviews will attest, he’s not one to mollify feelings easily. What do you think?

Rashida wrote:
“I want to know what happens to Sonny! Is this a hopeful tale or a doomed one?”

Rashida, we should definitely explore this once we uncover more of this. Like where does Sonny go from here?

I was immediately struck by the beautiful painting on the cover of this book when I first picked it up. Especially the colors & the attention to detail. Unusual to put a female on the cover? Silvia?....What's the significance of the title?

Jo, not disputing your take on Sonny as being abused but its hard for me to see him as abused and victimized. He's such a resilient, imaginative and creative character. He also lives in relative comfort and not grinding poverty. Of course none of these things are mutually exclusive of child abuse but if someone asked me to describe Sonny, abused would probably not be at the top of my list of descriptions. But it does cast a different light on things that I had not considered before.

Abused, certainly, by the men in his mother's life.

I thought the portrait on the cover would be Nica, I thought there was an innocence to the beauty.

As for the title- I thought each of the inhabitants of the building was one of the flower. While Cloyd just tried to appropriate some of the culture around him to make the building more appealing and failed (masculine/feminine article), it is like the twins said and they have formed their own Flowers family (perhaps making the Los appropriate after all). I think these folks are as much a family to Sonny as his sister and Cloyd, certainly.

Rashida wrote:...they have formed their own Flowers family (perhaps making the Los appropriate after all)."

That's a great observation, Rashida! The title makes perfect sense that way.

no one but no one gives a damn what he does and who he is. he is absolutely invisible to his mother. his opinion and desires don't count at all. he has to steal money to eat. that's abuse in my book.

but of course, bill, he's an awesome, life-loving, smart, funny kid. it's not like abuse turns everyone into sad sacks. look at the kids in Say You're One of Them. some criminally neglected people do very well indeed in life.

me, if my mom and my stepfather treated me like that, i'd hate them.

Woeful neglect? Possibly. But, at the least she's a terribly careless and irresponsible mother.

The cover art to me also suggests Nica as it seems that the profile is a rather young one. Certainly no crows feet that a heavy drinker like Sylvie would have.
Its amazing to me that in this "non traditional' book..a slice of life, sort of like "The Gangster We Are All Looking for" rather than a straight forward narrative, that Gilb is able to juggle so many different themes and ideas without letting a single one fall flat. I've read other books of his but this is by far his most skillful. It also seems to have generated one of our best and longest discussions so far. Thanks Columbus!

So what about that question of where does Sonny go? Should Gilb write a sequel ten years in the future? Or does that dilute the power of this novel?

Rashida, I think the framework to write a sequel to The Flowers is definitely there. Sonny Bravo is an amazing kid and there’s much left in this story still to be fleshed out. However, I’m very comfortable not knowing more. In fact, I like the idea of romanticizing a better and brighter future for Sonny. I can take the story wherever I choose to.

Furthermore, though I have every confidence in the world that Gilb would get it right. There’s been a lot more Rambo-type sequels than The Godfather. For a very bad analogy but you get my drift.

So much of this book is based on his own life that I can't imagine a sequel. I have been reading his book of essays Gritos which contains his essay about his mother, and many scenes are taken directly from his own experiences. (It is very good book, by the way.) I think that he probably stopped at the right point, with Sonny on the verge of manhood and complete independence.