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Debra Burroughs grew up in the San Francisco Bay Area during the tumultuous 1960’s, during the time the Civil Rights Movement was gearing up and racial tensions were mounting. Her parents moved the family to a more peaceful town in the Central Valley of California, where she became the assistant editor of her high school newspaper, and even had a teen column in the city paper.
Starting college, she majored in broadcast journalism, but over time she changed her major to business. Even though she moved her focus to business, she never lost her love for writing. She always hoped one day to return to it.
Over the years, with a large Mexican family, she heard many stories about their history, particularly from her mother and grandmother. As she would relay these colorful and heart-wrenching family stories to her friends, many times she would hear them say, “You should really write a book about that.”
After continual encouragement and gentle prodding from her husband of over 30 years, she finally decided to do it. Now that their children are grown and gone, Debra has found a quiet place to write in their home in Boise, Idaho.
Reviewed by Brenda Ballard for Readers' Favorite
The Ramirez family begins its multi-generational plight of bad luck and hard times in 1918, when the Spanish Flu and Pancho Villa's regime systematically destroy their world. After losing half of their children in a short time and the impending doom of soldiers, it is decided that they will cross the border illegally into the United States where they find life as migrant workers to be backbreaking and a poor quality of life. Within four years, their mother passes away from unknown causes and the youngest daughter is sent to live with an aunt who, although is expected to give the child a better life, is evil and cruel, making the girl's life a hell for the duration of her childhood.
Her adulthood is no better as she makes a few wrong pivotal life choices and becomes a prisoner of her abusive husband and large brood of children. Her first daughter, the product of another man, is loathed by her stepfather, bearing the brunt of much of the drunken anger that wasn't spent on her mother. Her escape to a concerned social worker's home to finish her high school gives her hope to carry on. Falling in love and marrying right out of high school, she finds herself in the same cycle as her mother only now it is not just alcohol but also a wandering eye.
She finds herself in the position to be able to remove her mother and the last of the siblings remaining under the heavy hand of her stepfather and in the process, rekindles a friendship with the only real junior high school friend she had. Will her family's streak of horrible luck finally end?
I loved this book. It was an interesting following the family through its history of woes and heartache. I found myself rooting for the women in this story, wanting them to get out of their situation, stand up for themselves and choose to walk away... There are so many parallels in this story to real life, I found myself wondering if this isn't based on a true story. The one thing that I found delightful was the "The End". Perfectly appropriate!!
