Places Left Unfinished at the Time of Creation

In this beautifully wrought memoir, award-winning writer John Philip Santos weaves together dream fragments, family remembrances, and Chicano mythology, reaching back into time and place to blend the story of one Mexican family with the soul of an entire people. The story unfolds through a pageant of unforgettable family figures: from Madrina--touched with epilepsy and prophecy ever since, as a girl, she saw a dying soul leave its body--to Teofilo, who was kidnapped as an infant and raised by the Kikapu Indians of Northern Mexico. At the heart of the book is Santos' search for the meaning of his grandfather's suicide in San Antonio, Texas, in 1939. Part treasury of the elders, part elegy, part personal odyssey, this is an immigration tale and a haunting family story that offers a rich, magical view of Mexican-American culture.

"With its multi-generational cast, many legends and ghostly visitations, Santos' book is evocative of Gabriel Gárcia Márquez's One Hundred Years of Solitude."--San Antonio Express-News (front page)

"This is a splendid memoir filled with universal themes of strong family bonds and appreciation for remembering the past." --San Diego Tribune

"Like Kathleen Norris's memoir of life on the Dakota plains, [this] is a spiritual geography, a reflection on time and the often unbearable tension between the spiritual and material."--The Boston Globe

John Phillip Santos is the first Mexican to be named a Rhodes Scholar. He currently works at the Ford Foundation.