Research Catalog

Title

Madre and I : a memoir of our immigrant lives / Guillermo Reyes.

Author

Reyes, Guillermo A.

Publication

Madison, Wis. : University of Wisconsin Press, c2010.

Items in the Library & Off-site

Details

Description

ix, 278 p. : ill.; 23 cm.

Summary

In this moving and funny memoir, award-winning playwright Guillermo Reyes untangles his life as the secretly illegitimate son of a Chilean immigrant to the United States and a young man struggling with sexual repression, body image, and gay identity. But this is a double-decker memoir that also tells the poignant, bittersweet, and adventurous story of Guillermos mother Maria, who supports herself and her son cleaning houses and then working as a nanny in Washington, D.C. and eventually in Hollywood. In one memorable scene, after realizing that her friend Carmen is cleaning the house of one of the producers of Annie Hall, Maria recruits her to take her picture as she poses dramatically with Mr. Joffes Oscar in hand. It is Marias defiant yet determined attitude amidst her sacrifices which allows for Guillermos spirited coming of age and coming out. Their common ground is the drama of their encounters with discovery, heartbreak, and passionthe explosive emotions that light up the stage of their two-actor theatre.

Series Statement

Writing in Latinidad : autobiographical voices of U.S. Latinos/as

Uniform Title

• Project Muse UPCC books
• Writing in Latinidad

Alternative Title

Madre & I

Subject

• Reyes, Guillermo A
• Hispanic American gays > Biography
• Immigrants > United States > Biography

Genre/Form

• Autobiographies
• Biographies
• Autobiographies.

Processing Action (note)

• committed to retain

Contents

Prologue -- Love child -- A Santiago education -- Comadres -- The subject was roses, or was it? -- Italian holiday -- Éxito, or the language of success -- María's wedding -- Pterodactyls -- Epilogue.

ISBN

• 9780299236243 (pbk. : alk. paper)
• 0299236242 (pbk. : alk. paper)
• 9780299236236 (e-book)
• 0299236234 (e-book)

LCCN

^^2009041310

OCLC

• 456421076
• SCSB-10970213

Owning Institutions

Harvard Library