I was invited by Random House to read an advance review copy of Crux: A Cross Border Memoir due to my interest in memoirs. Crux publishes tomorrow, July 17, 2018.
My Thoughts:
Crux: A Cross-Border Memoir by Jean Guerrero
My rating: 4 of 5 stars
4.5 harrowing stars to Crux: A Cross-Border Memoir! ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️ ⭐️.5
In Crux, Jean Guerrero, an investigative reporter, writes about her search for her father, Marco Antonio, a search in the figurative and literal senses, as she seeks understanding while also trying to pinpoint why he is on the run and where he is.
Marco is gifted at creating and engineering, all self-taught, and he meets Guerrero’s mother, when she is just out of medical school. Marco says he has special powers, that he is a shaman and can talk to animals, and it turns out, others in his lineage also had powers. However, Marco has difficulty with paranoia and thinks that the CIA wants to control his mind. He also uses drugs and alcohol to excess at times.
Guerrero, the reporter that she is, researches reasons for Marco’s behavior, other than possible schizophrenia. More than anything, she wants to understand her father. Traveling through Mexico, she interviews family and that is when she discovers that others in her father’s family background were mystics. Guerrero ends up taking some risks herself while on this journey, traveling through dangerous places and experimenting with those same things that tempt her father. She puts everything she has on the line, including her life, in her quest for answers.
Guerrero’s writing is exquisite, and while the format of the narrative jumps around in time somewhat, I did not mind because the story is so engaging. Her search for her father and the symbolism involved in the title alone gives me pause at all the various meanings. Not only did her father cross actual physical borders (and Guerrero did as well in her search), but he crosses that thin line between reality and disconnection from it.
Overall, Crux is an adventure and an exploration of the relationship between father and daughter. It is powerful, fascinating, enlightening, and begs the question of, in the process of Guerrero desperately seeking to find and understand her father, will she also find herself.
Thank you to Random House for the invitation to read this original memoir. Crux will be published on July 17, 2018.
View all my reviews
Synopsis:
A daughter’s quest to find, understand, and save her charismatic, troubled, and elusive father, a self-mythologizing Mexican immigrant who travels across continents–and across the borders between imagination and reality; and spirituality and insanity–fleeing real and invented persecutors.
In the tradition of parent-child memoirs, Enrique’s Journey meets The Glass Castle, here is the haunting story of a daughter’s quest to understand her father, to save him from his own demons and to save herself from following his self-destructive path. Marco Antonio was born in Mexico but as a teenager migrated with his large family north to California, where he met Jean’s mother, a young Puerto Rican woman just out of med school. Marco was a self-taught genius at fixing and creating things–including a mythology about himself as a shaman, a dreamcaster, and an animal whisperer, rather than the failed father, husband, and son he feared he was. Before long Marco goes on the run from his family and responsibilities–to Asia, to Europe, and eventually back to Mexico–with long crack and whiskey binges, suffering from what he claimed were CIA mind control experiments. As soon as she’s old enough, Jean follows.
Using her skills as a journalist, and her lifelong obsessions with the fuzzy lines between truth and fantasy, Jean searches for explanations for her father’s behavior other than schizophrenia, the diagnosis her mother whispered to Jean when she was still a child. She takes his wildest claims seriously and investigates them. She interviews cousins and grandparents and discovers a chain of fabulists and mystics, going back to her great great grandmother, a clairvoyant curandera who was paid to summon forth voices and visions from the afterlife. She begins mirroring her father’s self-destructive behavior in her own wild experiements with sex and drugs and her flirtations with death in jungles and the middle of the sea. She risks everything in her quest to understand and redeem her father from the underworld of his obsessions and delusions and self-destruction — to bring him back to the world of the living.
This is the story of a child’s search for an elusive parent–through exploration, analysis, and embodiment–but also a penetrating journey into the idea of borders and crossings: between sanity and madness, cultures and languages, scientific worlds and mystical, spiritual impulses, life and death. Crux is both a riveting adventure story driven by desire and a profoundly original exploration of the mysteries of our world, our most intimate relationships, and ourselves.
I’m going to order this based upon your review. Do you have a link that will recognise you as the referer?
LikeLiked by 2 people
That is so thoughtful of you to ask, but I don’t at this time. I really hope you love the book, and that is truly the best compliment ever that you are going to read it based on my review- so thank you!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’ll go pre-order now.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I have been somewhat disappointed in the last few memoirs I have read, but this one does sound quite good. I will definitely take a look at it.
LikeLiked by 2 people
I really enjoyed this one, Marialyce. The author has a unique voice and quite the story to tell! I hope you enjoy it if you decide to pick it up.
LikeLike
Not really my thing but I’m glad you loved it!😊 You are on a reading tear aren’t you?😊💖
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks, Sus! I have been on vacation and trying so hard to get on top of my reads and reviews! ♥️ 💕
LikeLike
Lovely review Jennifer! 💗
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you, Lindsay! Xo
LikeLike
This looks really interesting. Adding it to my TBR. 😊 I swear my TBR pike gets higher and higher everyday
LikeLiked by 2 people
It was a fascinating read, Rachel! So different, raw, and honest. My TBR grows daily, too! We need more days to read! 😊
LikeLike
Great review as always! 😊
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you, Lana! 💕
LikeLiked by 1 person
Your most welcome… I didn’t see fitbits on Prime…🤨 but I’m debating on the paper white kindle still… any shopping for you on Prime Day?
LikeLiked by 1 person
I have been so busy today, I haven’t even looked! I am a horrible influence, but I think you should get the Paperwhite! The prices will never be lower than this one for the year. It’s so much easier on your eyes, too! (Now I’m going to go take a peek!) And I am sorry about the fitbits! They were running a sale on the Fitbit website but that may have been last week?
LikeLiked by 1 person
Ya, I remember you tellin me that…I should have just ordered one! I miss my watch so much, but I was hoping maybe Prime would have a competitive price. Eventually I will get one.. 😁have a great night!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Lovely review Jennifer not really my type of book, but perhaps someday I will open my mind more!💕
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks, Berit! To me, if memoirs are written well they can be as fascinating or even more so than fiction! 💗
LikeLike
Awesome review. I placed on my tbr list.🤓😎📚
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks, Virginia! I hope you enjoy it too! ♥️
LikeLike
So glad to hear you enjoyed this book; I am rooting for it! I love reading memoirs. Among my favorites are Life is So Good (Dawson), Zami (Lorde), A Little in Love With Everyone (Hudson), The Country Under My Skin (Belli)… Thanks for sharing this review!
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank you, Karla, and thank you for that list. I don’t think I’ve read anything of them and am adding them all now! Crux is an unforgettable story!
LikeLiked by 1 person
Wow this sounds like such a powerful read Jen! Fantastic review!! 👍🏻👌🏻👏🏻
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thank, Beth! It was so powerful and engaging!
LikeLiked by 1 person
I don’t do memoirs often as I kind of feel weird putting a rating on someone’s life story but I do know they can be just as moving or more so than fiction so I can see how you enjoy them. 🙂
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks, Carrie. I totally understand. Maybe you could read them and not rate them, if you were particularly drawn to one? 😊
LikeLiked by 1 person
I may do that when the next catches my attention, just pick it up outside of NG.
LikeLiked by 1 person
A tantalizing review, Jennifer. I love reading memoirs but have had little time for the genre this year. I must make more of an effort! 😊
LikeLiked by 2 people
Thanks, Paula! I love them, too! As they say, the truth is often stranger (more engaging is a better word) than fiction!
LikeLiked by 1 person
A wonderful read. I just finished this morning. So well written and frankly very courageously so.
So glad I read your review.
LikeLiked by 2 people
Yay! Thanks for letting me know how you liked it, Richard! I’ve been a little worried because while I recognize that I enjoyed it, I wasn’t sure that everyone would. That said, I’m so happy you did. I completely agree about the courage. Thanks again for taking the time to let me know.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I found it quite astounding. There is a term “brutally honest”, for me that’s when I talk about anorexia and leave myself vulnerable. I found that Jean was brutally honest about her experience of life and those of her family.
I love how casual she writes and yet how meaningful at the same time. A book I’m very glad to have read.
LikeLiked by 1 person
I’m so grateful to know that. Thank you again.
LikeLiked by 1 person