Suffering vs. Misery

You know I'm a book addict. I've found a new drug of choice--the works of Luis Alberto Urrea. Some post on Pinterest made me curious so I pursued his books at my own Northwest Maricopa County Library. It's tough to round up copies all over the county, but I did it, not knowing what I would find.

I started with The Devil's Highway, a nonfiction book about various areas of the borderland between Mexico and the U.S. What an eye opener! A fascinating view of areas of the country that pulse with suffering and excesses of every kind.

Then I attacked The Hummingbirds Daughter. Luis Urrea's ancestor Teresa Urrea, Teresita, is the basis of this fictionalized account of a woman considered a saint and a wicked fraud simultaneously. That lead me into The Queen of America which is the sequel to previous story.

 By the Lake of Sleeping Children, another nonfiction about the garbage dump of Tijuana, Mexico, will honestly make you queasy and weak as the stench but the strength of the people pulls you in.

Today I finished Into the Beautiful North. I suspect that Urrea has ruined me for lesser writers. My thriller mysteries leave me cold now.

www.luisurrea.com is Luis Urrea's website. It will mesmerize you. There are interviews with him and book reviews and discussion. I'm hooked.

Today I listened to an interview with him in which he quoted some other writer I can't name whom I paraphrase: Suffering is inevitable, but misery is optional. We all have pain but whether we let it ruin us or not is a choice.

I hope you become a Urrea addict too. He is funny and heart wrenching and informative. His style is heavenly. What a way with words! How I wish I could take a writing course from him. Though it will never happen, I can still dream. His work will make you think differently about the "aliens," the border, and your fate. There but for the grace of God, go I. Living in Arizona has made me a bit jaded about the border, but I can now think of it in a different light because of Urrea's writing.