Retablos

Stories from a Life Lived Along the Border

By: Octavio Solis

Narrated by: Octavio Solis

Living in El Paso, just a mile from the Rio Grande, Octavio is a skinny brown kid on the border, riding his bike out into the desert, growing up among those who live there and those passing through on their way north. Rituals of childhood and rites of passage are remembered as singular, dramatic events, moments of trauma and transformation with life-changing reverberations.

A Buzzfeed Best Books of the Year Selection in Nonfiction
A New York Times Pick of Books About What Life Is Really Like on the Mexican Border

©2019 Octavio Solis (P)2019 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Critic reviews

"Solis shares his memories as a brown person on the border with a keen eye and an agile way with words...Solis hones each scene with striking sensual imagery.... In all, a beautiful, evocative, and timely expression of border culture for every library collection." (Booklist)

Reflective, intentional and poetic.

If you loved books like house on mango Street and Y no se lo trago la tierra, you will adore the messages in these stories. These are stories sung like happy, familiar hymns you are just now learning the words to and you aren't sure if you are comfortable with their meaning. He is poetic and brilliant and because he reads his own stories, you don't have to wonder about his inflection and intent. I will recommend this to others and read it again for myself.

Excellent

Solis' writing is like eating the experience of of life. He and I are of the same age. I feel part of his experience and yet, as far away as a priveleged Southern California white girl raised on peninsula overlooking the Pacific could feel. We had so many common experiences of that era and we did what all kids did back then. Yet, his seems so much richer because he wasn't entitled nor given it all.... His family was close and loving which means so much more.
Excellent, excellent writing.

Spellbinding

Just finished listening to this amazing collection, and the next step for me is to track
down every word the man has written.

Excellent

My students and I could not put down the book. While I chose to skip a few of the more risque chapters with my class of high schoolers, I read every page. We absolutely LOVED it. It was exceptionally written and performed, heartbreaking at times, and a must-read for all.

a wonder

wonderful pieces of a life, beautifully written and just as well read by the author. heartily recommended