Into the Beautiful North
Luis Alberto Urrea, 2009
Little, Brown & Co.
338 pp.
ISBN-13: 9780316025263
Summary
Nineteen-year-old Nayeli works at a taco shop in her Mexican village and dreams about her father, who journeyed to the US to find work. Recently, it has dawned on her that he isn't the only man who has left town.
In fact, there are almost no men in the village—they've all gone north. While watching The Magnificent Seven, Nayeli decides to go north herself and recruit seven men—her own "Siete Magníficos"—to repopulate her hometown and protect it from the bandidos who plan on taking it over.
Filled with unforgettable characters and prose as radiant as the Sinaloan sun, Into the Beautiful North is the story of an irresistible young woman's quest to find herself on both sides of the fence. (From the publisher.)
Author Bio
• Birth—1955
• Where—Tiujana, Mexico
• Education—B.A., University of California, San Diego;
University of Colorado, Boulder (graduate work)
• Awards—American Book Award, Christopher Award, Lannan
Literary Award, Pulitizer Prize (nonfiction); Latino Literature
Hall of Fame
• Currently—lives in Naperville, Illinois, USA
Luis Alberto Urrea, 2005 Pulitzer Prize finalist for nonfiction and member of the Latino Literature Hall of Fame, is a prolific and acclaimed writer who uses his dual-culture life experiences to explore greater themes of love, loss and triumph.
Born in Tijuana, Mexico to a Mexican father and an American mother, Urrea has published extensively in all the major genres and is currently published by Little, Brown and Company.
The critically acclaimed author of 11 books, Urrea is an award-winning poet and essayist. The Devil's Highway, his 2004 non-fiction account of a group of Mexican immigrants lost in the Arizona desert, won the 2004 Lannan Literary Award and was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize and the Pacific Rim Kiriyama Prize. A national best-seller, The Devil's Highway was also named a best book of the year by the Los Angeles Times, the Miami Herald, the Chicago Tribune, the Kansas City Star and many other publications.
Urrea's first book, Across the Wire, was named a New York Times Notable Book and won the Christopher Award. Urrea also won a 1999 American Book Award for his memoir, Nobody's Son: Notes from an American Life and in 2000, he was voted into the Latino Literature Hall of Fame following the publication of Vatos. His book of short stories, Six Kinds of Sky, was named the 2002 small-press Book of the Year in fiction by the editors of ForeWord magazine. He has also won a Western States Book Award in poetry for The Fever of Being and was in The 1996 Best American Poetry collection.
Urrea's 2005 book, The Hummingbird's Daughter, is the culmination of 20 years of research and writing. The historical novel tells the story of Teresa Urrea, sometimes known as The Saint of Cabora and the Mexican Joan of Arc.
Urrea attended the University of California at San Diego, earning an undergraduate degree in writing, and did his graduate studies at the University of Colorado-Boulder.
Extras
• After serving as a relief worker in Tijuana and a film extra and columnist-editor-cartoonist for several publications, Urrea moved to Boston where he taught expository writing and fiction workshops at Harvard. He has also taught at Massachusetts Bay Community College and the University of Colorado and he was the writer in residence at the University of Louisiana-Lafayette.
• Urrea's other titles include By the Lake of Sleeping Children, In Search of Snow, Ghost Sickness and Wandering Time. His writing has won an American Book Award, a Western States Book Award, a Colorado Center for the Book Award and a Christopher Award. The Devil's Highway has been optioned for a film by CDI Producciones.
Urrea lives with his family in Naperville, IL, where he is a professor of creative writing at the University of Illinois-Chicago. (From the author's website.)
Book Reviews
Deliciously composed.... [Urrea writes] in a sweet but serious style.... You find it in the dialogue...[and] in the description of the countryside.... The plot gathers as much strength as the prose.
Alan Cheuse - Chicago Tribune
Awash in a subtle kind of satire.... As a funny and poignant impossible journey,...Into the Beautiful North is a refreshing antidote to all the negativity currently surrounding Mexico.
Roberto Ontiveros - Dallas Morning News
A wonderful comic satire.... Urrea uses a breathtaking Mexican magical realism to construct a shimmering portrait of the United States.
Denver Post
"[A] wondrous yarn in the hands of a terrific storyteller.... Urrea's meticulous detail makes the story come to life.... Not to trivialize, but these characters cry out for a sequel—maybe a telenovela?—They are too good for just a single outing.
Valerie Ryan - Seattle Times
Nayeli, the Taqueria worker of Urrea's fine new novel (after The Hummingbird's Daughter), is a young woman in the poor but tight-knit coastal Mexican town of Tres Camarones who spends her days serving tacos and helping her feisty aunt Irma get elected as the town's first female mayor. Abandoned by her father who headed north for work years before, Nayeli is hit with the realization that her hometown is all but abandoned by men, leaving it at the mercy of drug gangsters. So Nayeli hatches an elaborate scheme inspired by The Magnificent Seven: with three friends, she heads north to find seven Mexican men and smuggle them back into Mexico to protect the town. What she discovers along the way, of course, surprises her. Urrea's poetic sensibility and journalistic eye for detail in painting the Mexican landscape and sociological complexities create vivid, memorable scenes. Though the Spanglish can be tough for the uninitiated to detangle, the colorful characters, strong narrative and humor carry this surprisingly uplifting and very human story.
Publishers Weekly
"Perhaps it is time for a new kind of femininity," declares Nayeli, the 19-year-old heroine of this engaging postglobalization immigration story from the author of The Hummingbird's Daughter. Nayeli's small village in the Sinaloa region of Mexico has been drained of its adult males, including her father, by the promise of El Norte, and taken over by some shadowy gangsters. Inspired by a screening of The Magnificent Seven at the local cinema, Nayeli decides to journey north herself, not to seek her fortune in "Los Yunaites" but to bring back some of the men who have abandoned their families and their country, thereby saving her beloved town. It would be hard to go wrong with such a premise, and Urrea rises to the occasion with a surprising, inventive, and very funny novel populated by an array of quirky characters. His fast-paced, accessible style has the crossover appeal of a John Steinbeck or Cormac McCarthy, while the politically charged undercurrent of the novel pulses with a compassionate vision of the future. Highly recommended.
Forest Turner - Library Journal
Three Mexican senoritas cross the border with a gay escort in this good-humored road novel from Urrea (The Hummingbird's Daughter, 2005, etc.). The coastal town of Tres Camarones has gone from sleepy to desolate since its men went north to "Los Yunaites," looking for work. Luckily there are two strong women in town. Middle-aged Irma, a no-nonsense former bowling champion, is running for mayor. Her niece Nayeli, a dark-skinned beauty one year out of high school, is her campaign manager. Nayeli misses her father, one of the migrants, and treasures his one postcard, from Kankakee, Ill. After Irma is elected, Nayeli turns her attention to the crime wave she sees coming-though all we've been shown are two out-of-luck drug dealers. Inspired by a screening of The Magnificent Seven at the Cine Pedro Infante, she decides to head north and bring back Mexican cops or soldiers to help her deal with the bandidos. Joining Nayeli in her quest are Yolo and Vampi, her "homegirls," and Tacho, gay owner of La Mano Ca'da Taquer'a and Internet cafe. The premise is weak, and Urrea keeps everything cartoon simple so he can get his show on the road. The town takes up a collection and gives the girls a big send-off. In Tijuana, Nayeli fights off some bad guys before being befriended by At-miko, ersatz warrior and authentic trash-picker, who insists on joining their mission. Using tunnels, they cross the border successfully on their second attempt. (This is well-covered ground for Urrea: See his nonfiction border trilogy, beginning with Across the Wire, 1992.) In a silly bit of farce, Tacho is arrested as a suspected al-Qaeda member. Meanwhile, the ladies spend time in San Diego. Their recruiting goes well. Yolo and Vampi find boyfriends. Nayeli, still single, goes back on the road with the liberated Tacho. They are heading for Illinois, her father's putative home, but the momentum has been lost and the ending is a fizzle. Minor work from a writer who has done much better.
Kirkus Reviews
Discussion Questions
1. Into the Beautiful North tells the exceptional story of a small group’s successful mission to save their village in its bleakest hour. What are some of the other themes that Luis Alberto Urrea unpacks along the way?
2. Language and dialect play an integral role in the novel’s style. Spanish words and phonetic spellings are laced throughout, and Spanglish and slang are used on both sides of the border. What does Urrea achieve by mixing language in this way? What does it say about the ability of language to bridge—or not to bridge—cultural gaps?
3. Into the Beautiful North is divided into two parts—Sur and Norte. References to American pop culture abound in the first half as Nayeli and her friends speak of life across the border with unwavering certainty. Where do their ideas of America come from? How does the reality of their time in the U.S. compare to their initial ideas of it? Are they surprised or disappointed?
4. Nayeli tells García-García, “Perhaps it is time for a new kind of femininity?” What does she mean? Given the homage to The Magnificent Seven and Seven Samurai in the novel, how has Urrea played with gender stereotypes?
5. Into the Beautiful North examines physical and psychological borders. Urrea repeatedly shows that while the physical borders can be crossed, some that are culturally defined appear unbridgeable. What are those culturally defined differences, and do you think it’s possible to eradicate such invisible borders?
6. After traveling thousands of miles in search of her father, Nayeli is unable to confront him. In your opinion, does she make the right decision to heed his words at this time—“all things must pass”—or should she have approached him?
7. What do you make of the overwhelming turnout produced by Aunt Irma’s interviews? Why do so many men want to return to Mexico, and does this strike you as ironic?
8. Nayeli and her friends are inspired by the movie The Magnificent Seven, a remake of the Japanese film Seven Samurai. Both films climax with the showdown between good guys and bad guys, but Urrea ends his novel before such a clash. Why do you think he did so?
9. Were you surprised to find the Mexican characters so knowledgeable about American pop culture? If you were surprised, did it change how you think about Mexico?
10. Where did your family emigrate from? Did you recognize any parallels between your family stories and this one?
(Questions issued by publisher.)
top of page (summary