“We the Animal” by Justin Torres contains nineteen brief stories of three Latino children. Each can be read as its own. But every chapter also advances our knowledge of their growth in a dysfunctional family that lives in an inner-city barrio in America. Its poetic prose and vivid dialogues touch my heart. The book reminds me of “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.” The author’s attention to detail abounds. He captures expressions, movements, and surroundings. Justin Torres does not abuse his gift for careful observation. He recounts enough features to plunge readers into the reality the characters are living: “Every once in a while, Ma would point out some happening for me to look at, a duck touching down onto the water, his head pulled back on his neck, beating his wings before him, or a water bug with spindly legs that dimpled the lake’s surface.
I can pick any page to select a brilliant literary snippet such as the following: “We woke to the sound of Paps digging out back, his grunt, his heave, his shovel hack. We pushed open the upstairs window and leaned out into the early morning sky, sleepy and confused, still in our underwear, our skin one shade of deep summer brown. If Paps had looked up, we would have appeared to him like a three-torsoed beast, but he didn’t look up, and we didn’t call down to him.”

I recommend this book. Do you have any comment or suggestion for reviewing another interesting book with brilliant prose?

Addendum: Readers in my Circle of Friends can enjoy new exclusive material on their password-protected page on this website. You may use the same password I sent you when you subscribed. If you forgot it, send me an email (louis@louisvillalba.com). The new material includes chapters of my two completed but unpublished novels: “Born of Dreams” and “The Monarch’s Flight.” It also contains highlights of my work in progress and a collection of poems, including the award-winning “What Is Green?”