A finalist for the Pulitzer Prize for his landmark work of nonficiton The Devil's Highway, Luis Alberto Urrea is also the bestselling author of the novels The Hummingbird's Daughter, Into the Beautiful North, and Queen of America, as well as the story collections The Water Museum, a PEN/Faulkner Award finalist. He has won the Lannan Literary Award, an Edgar Award, and a 2017 American Academy of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, among many other honors. Born in Tijuana to a Mexican father and American mother, he lives outside of Chicago and teaches at the University of Illinois-Chicago.
"A raucous, moving, and necessary book...Intimate and
touching...The stuff of legend...There's deep heart and tenderness
in this novel.The House of Broken Angels is, at its most political,
a border story...Chillingly accurate, they're heartbreaking, and
infuriating."--Alexis Burling, San Francisco Chronicle
"An immensely charming and moving tale...Urrea deftly inhabits many
points of view, dreaming up an internal voice for each...It is a
testament to his swift and lucid characterizations that one does
not want to leave this party...A novel like The House of Broken
Angels is a radical act. It is a big, epic storyabout how hard it
is to love with all of your heart, and all of your
family--regardless of which side of the border they live on."--John
Freeman, Boston Globe
"Epic . . . Rambunctious . . . Highly entertaining . . . Sorrowful
and funny . . . Cheerfully profane . . .The quips and jokes come
fast through a poignant novel that is very much about time itself .
. . A powerful rendering of a Mexican-American family that is also
an American family."--Viet Thanh Nguyen, New York Times Book Review
(cover review)
"Generous and big-hearted...The House of Broken Angels soars on
wings of memory and imagination into the 'imperfect and glorious,
messy and hilarious' tragedy and comedy of family history."--Diana
Postlethwaite, Minneapolis Star-Tribune
"Luis Alberto Urrea has crafted a story that is teeming with family
love, secrets, jealousies, alliances, and surprises that make it
burst with life on every page. He uses a large cast of characters
to portray the breadth of the de La Cruz clan and also make them
universal. Change the names, locations, language, and in-jokes, and
they could be Italian, Jewish, Irish, or any other group of
immigrants that has struggled to combine elements of their original
home with their new one . . . The House of Broken Angels can be a
multigenerational, multinational dwelling anywhere. Get a copy for
your house."--Dale Singer, St. Louis Post-Dispatch
"The House of Broken Angels has everything we demand of a great
novel--sweep, ambition, generosity, myth, intimacy, and, above all,
humanity. Luis Alberto Urrea just gets better and better."--Richard
Russo, Pulitzer Prize-winning and New York Times bestselling author
of Everybody's Fool
"The House of Broken Angels is a love song to the Mexican-American
family."--Time
"The House of Broken Angels will appeal to anybody...A tender,
sprawling, funny, violent family saga."--David Steinberg,
Albuquerque Journal
"The House of Broken Angels is a big, messy, warmhearted epic,
over-flowing with color and character...With bird's eye agility,
Urrea moves between borders and generations...His narrative is
imbued with the timeless texture of every immigrant's hope's and
dreams...Generous to the last breath."--Leah Greenblatt,
Entertainment Weekly
"A beautiful and heartbreaking family story."--HelloGiggles
"A big-hearted family epic that radiates with the joy of telling
stories...The vibe of the novel isn't an elegy for the end of a
clan that's lost its sense of identity, but a tribute to a family
that has acquired the freedom to make multiple identities for
itself...For a novel about death, there's a lot of life in
it."--Mark Athitakis, Barnes & Noble Book Review
"A family saga that asks what it means to be American . . . The
novel is knowing and intimate, funny and tragic at once. The de la
Cruzes are a big clan, messy and complex. The members have
competing agendas and secrets, but at the same time, all share a
commitment to family. 'All we do, mija, ' Big Angel tells his
daughter, 'is love. Love is the answer. Nothing stops it. Not
borders. Not death.' It's impossible to read that line (or, for
that matter, this novel) without reflecting on the current American
moment, in which Mexican American families such as the de la Cruzes
are often vilified. But if Urrea's novel is anything, it is an
American tale. It is a celebration, although Urrea is no
sentimentalist; he knows the territory in which his narrative
unfolds. There is tragedy here and danger; these are real people,
living in the real world. Still, even when that world intrudes, it
only heightens the strength, the resilience, of the family . . .
Even in death, Urrea shows, we never lose our connection to one
another, which is the point of this deft and moving book."--Kirkus
Reviews (starred review)
"A fascinating look at culture, family, and the roots that ground
us to one another; Luis Alberto Urrea's The House of Broken Angels
may be set around a 100-year-old's birthday party, but it reaches
into every area of modern American life."--PopSugar
"A novel about humanity and all its marvelous mess...The House of
Broken Angels succeeds in its depiction of the pettiness and love
that so peculiarly intertwine in families.In particular, the
relationship between Big Angel and Little Angel is loving and
fraught, heightened by the sense that they must get it all out in
the open with too little time. Urrea has clearly written from the
heart...His novel is an intimate tribute to the bonds we don't get
to choose, but to which we owe everything."--Grace Parazzoli, Santa
Fe New Mexican
"A warmly hilarious novel. . . . Rollicking chaos, masterful
storytelling and deep affection for its countless
characters."--Colette Bancroft, Tampa Bay Times
"A whirling fiesta of a book...Filled with intelligence and
wickedly funny cultural commentary, the story builds to an
electrifying finale."--Marion Winik, People
"A sprawling yet intimate tale...rich in detail and images...It's
the sort of book you might read, as I did, in one long, breathless
push."--Moira Macdonald, Seattle Times
"Bestselling novelist Urrea celebrates family as he digs deep into
the small moments and big questions of life. 'Love is the answer, '
he writes. 'Nothing stops it. Not borders. Not death.'"--Jane
Ciabattari, BBC
"Boisterous . . . Fun . . . Although underscored by tragedy and
strife, this novel is a story of hope and love-for all broken
angels."--Yvette Benavides, San Antonio Express-News
"Clamoring and joyful...A story of crossed borders: the U.S.-Mexico
border, of course, across which the family immigrated years ago,
but also the borders between versions of history and between life
and death...Urrea's affection for his characters is contagious, and
the reader feels as though she's been welcomed to the party...Big
Angel proves himself courageous in the face of death. But above
all, he is courageous in his love, and the novel is beautifully
unapologetic in this affirmation...A brimming, expansive
novel."--Kirstin Valdez Quade, Newsday
"Dizzying...Urrea writes in exhilarating but controlled slashes,
wielding a machete that cuts like a scalpel. Every page comes alive
with scent, taste, and, perhaps most lovingly, touch...The House of
Broken Angels is about a quintessentially American family, a family
that came north looking for heaven but found that 'heaven was a
blueprint.' But it's also about what it means to look back on a
life and, with total honesty, take stock."--Omar El Akkad,
Bookpage
"Each of the De la Cruzes is in some way a performer who shows
extraordinary courage and vulnerability...Big Angel is grateful for
his wife, for his family, and for the power of memory, and what an
incredible story he tells...The House of Broken Angels is full of
life and spirit and joy. At is heart this is a novel about being
alive."--Luba Sawczyn, Burlington Times-News
"Engrossing and indispensable...This is a tender, passionate,
loving and violent book, just like la familia...They have their
squabbles and secrets, their grudges and crushes, their rivalries
and resentments. But for every moment of sorrow, there are two
moments of joy; for every fear, a glimmer of potential...This
sincere family epic should be read all over our land of
immigrants."--Cory Oldweiler, amNewYork
"Exuberant...Urrea has written a vital, vibrant book about the
immigrant experience that is a messy celebration of life's common
joys and sorrows."--Publishers Weekly
"Humane and often laugh-out-loud hilarious."--O, The Oprah
Magazine
"Like the De la Cruz family, Urrea's writing is exuberant, unruly,
and sometimes profane, filled with splashes of Spanglish and
sensual imagery...The writing is political, too, as the author
describes the often arbitrary cruelty of the border that has shaped
the characters' lives...The author's humor does not diminish the
daily horrors on America's border; it merely reveals the awfulness
more clearly."--Sarah Tory, High Country News
"Luis Alberto Urrea is a master storyteller, and he delivers a
masterwork with The House of Broken Angels. Stories spin on
stories. There are lives intimately depicted and fully realized;
losses redeemed by love; a dazzling display of narrative fireworks,
each little scene a gem; and larger-than-life characters across two
borders who cross all borders and become ours. We enter this house
of broken angels, and through the magical power of Urrea's writing,
we become healed and whole. And we laugh and tear up and shake our
heads in wonder all the way to the ending of a book we don't want
to end. Urrea delivers on every page. ¡Dios santo! What a
storyteller! Bless his capacious heart!"--Julia Alvarez, author of
How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents
"Luis Alberto Urrea is one of America's foremost chroniclers of the
messy, swirling, often embarrassing chaos that we politely call
'family.'...The House of Broken Angels [is] a dizzying, powerful
book that wraps its arms around all the emotion and chaos of a
large family."--Kirkus
"Luis Alberto Urrea's The House of Broken Angels is a vivid
portrait of one Mexican-American family in San Diego and the
complexities of immigration and heritage. The patriarch of the De
La Cruz family decides to throw a huge birthday party in the last
days of his life, but his mother also dies in the days leading up
to the event, leading to a bittersweet celebration of both of their
lives and their family's legacy."--Jarry Lee, Buzzfeed
"Luis Alberto Urrea's new novel is an unforgettable family epic, a
sweeping story that takes place over one weekend in San Diego in
which a family unspools stories--legendary, mythic, and utterly
entertaining--that have been passed down to them and which bring to
life a vivid rendering of the Mexican-American immigrant experience
in America."--Caroline Rogers, Southern Living
"Luis Urrea is a mythmaker with the heart of a poet. He is that
paradox, a gentle, kind writer who can hurt you deeply with honesty
and beauty. I'm glad we have him."--Neil Gaiman, New York Times
bestselling author of The Ocean at the End of the Lane
"Richly rendered and emotionally satisfying...Urrea's immense
literary imagination never ceases to work wonders. In The House of
Broken Angels, his style of magical realism creates an
unforgettable alchemy, transforming the struggles of a
multigenerational Latinx family into a moving mythos of
kinship...Extraordinary."--Shelf Awareness
"The kind of sweeping family saga you lose yourself in--big and
warm, and rich with history and love and culture."--Samantha Irby,
Marie Claire
"The story of the de La Cruzes is the quintessential American
story...It takes us into a world we have not known, while
reflecting back on the hopes and dreams of our own families."--Adam
Morgan, Chicago Review of Books
"The House of Broken Angels is a big, sprawling, messy, sexy,
raucous house party of a book, a pan-generational family saga with
an enormous, bounding heart, a poetic delivery, and plenty of
swagger...More than once while reading the novel, I thought of
James Joyce's 'The Dead, ' another kaleidoscopic fable of family
life that skillfully mixes perspectives...The House of Broken
Angels isa book about celebration that is, itself, a
celebration."--Michael Lindgren, Washington Post
"The Mexican American poet and storyteller weaves another great
yarn."--John Timpane, The Philadelphia Inquirer
"This brilliant (truly, like a multi-faceted gem) novel is intimate
in its revelations of one beautifully complicated family, but epic
in the way in which it portrays a myriad of human experiences...A
novel that is explosive and empathetic, and a much-needed depiction
of what life is like for this very American family, as it straddles
different worlds and ways of being."--Kristen Iversen, Nylon
"This, the most personal book by the great American novelist Luis
Alberto Urrea, is one of the most vivid and engrossing family epics
of the last twenty years."--Dave Eggers, National Book Award
finalist and New York Times bestselling author of The Circle
"Two paragraph is and I was unabashedly in love with Luis Alberto
Urrea's masterful and richly textured new novel, The House of
Broken Angel, about this family that manages to be both
extraordinary and completely ordinary...Few characters are as alive
as Big Angel, and few stories have resonated with me as much as
this one."
--Ashley Riggleston, The Free Lance-Star
"Unfailingly personal and deeply poignant...a deft celebration of
the Mexican-American family."--Harper's Bazaar
"Urrea dives head-first into the hearts and minds of some truly
unforgettable characters. If you love a book that draws you in with
masterful language and deep understanding of the human spirit,
you're certainly in luck."--Melissa Ragsdale, Bustle
"Urrea masterfully crafts a portrait of a sprawling family living
in different worlds...His newest is an honest and moving portrayal
of how families fall apart and come together during difficult
times."--Stephanie Sendaula, Library Journal
"Urrea once again captures the anxieties and joys of a family
balanced on the borders between generations, El Norte and Mexico,
and life and death. A quintessentially American
story."--Booklist
"Urrea spins some wonderful phrases as he leads us through his
throng of characters...You couldn't ask for a more vivid sense of
place either, whether you're talking physical surroundings or the
way people think and speak. There's a telling moment when Little
Angel ponders freeway traffic 'rushing past the invisible barrio,
unaware of the lives up here, the little houses, all these
unknowable stories.' The House of Broken Angels makes them
known."--Michael Upchurch, Chicago Tribune
"Urrea's gifts as a storyteller are prodigious...The book's spirit
is irrepressibly high. Even in its saddest moments, The House of
Broken Angels hums with joy...The noveloverflows with the pleasure
of family...And all that vulnerability, combined with humor and
celebration and Urrea's vivid prose, will crack you open."--Lily
Meyer, NPR
"Urrea's touch is sure, his exuberance carries you
through...Everything is mined for a humor that rings raw and
true...Urrea is a generous writer, not just in his approach to his
craft--with sentences piling up in fat swaths of conversation, tall
stories, tragedies, color--but in the broader sense of what he
feels necessary to capture about life itself...It is one of the
miracles of literature that you adopt families not your own, places
that are alien to your experience, into your own memories. The de
La Cruzes will feel to many readers like their own relatives:
exasperating, dysfunctional, riven by loss, full of juice, and
ultimately real."--Nilanjana Roy, Financial Times
"What Urrea achieves in this sprawling and sensual novel is
remarkable. Every paragraph holds its own; but together they tell
the whole messy story of a family that, at its essence, mirrors
your own."--Sarah Bagby, KMUW
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