The story is ambitious andcomplex. There's a Mexican-American attorney at its center, who ischarged with defending a young African-American boy for a doublemurder. This is just the barest outline of the story which includes anexcellent portrait of the San Francisco legal system and itslawyers. The two victims of the crime are a North Vietnamese woman andan African American woman who are opening a restaurant together in aslum of San Francisco. There's a bond between these two women that gobeyond the fact that each of them have lost husbands and Vietnam. Thedepth to which the author takes their characterization goes to levelsI have never seen explored before.
The book moves along as theconnections between the well defined and poetically describedcharacters weave together in a tapestry that is nothing short of puregenus. The writer has a mastery of words and images as well thecourage to take chances. The reader must suspend disbelief a bit; butit is worth it. I found myself mesmerized by the swirling words andimages which keep the tension high with action, insights, andmulti-leveled metaphors. Gods Go Begging is nothing short of aliterary masterpiece and I give it my very highest recommendation.
I found this in the book store. The cover itself is a captivating photo of an anonymous grunt on the air strip in Vietnam, ready with a rifle and a guitar. So, I picked it up and read the first chapter, which details the deaths of two anonymous women by narrating their autopsy. It was such a PLEASURE to read that chapter. And I found in reading the novel that almost any chapter can stand on its own as a compelling narration.
Like a mystery, or perhaps like assembling the pieces of a jury trial, or one's own life experiences, the big picture starts to come together in the later chapters. This book ought to be worth my re-reading not only because I'll have different expectations of the chapters given my first reading of the book, but because each chapter is a joy to read.
This book bears similarity to the movie "Memento" except that the plot makes sense at the end, and it has the feel of Magical Realism characteristic of Latin-American novels by authors like Marquez.
Gods Go Begging by Alfredo Vea will stick in this brain for good, in the best possible way. I almost didn't purchase this novel because of the book jacket-a picture of the back view of a solitary guitar/rifle/gas mask toting soldier in half regalia standing on what looks like an airport runway, a small bag with a Vietnam insignia resting by his boot. I assumed a story predominantly about war in the conventional sense. Could not have been more mistaken.
There are at least four wars being *raged* here among these taut and yet simultaneously lovely pages, all framed within rich language and insightful narrative.
Jesse Pasadoble is a defense attorney in San Francisco waging a war against the stupidity of the typical clients and prejudice in the courtroom. He is joined frequently in the courtroom, in the cafe, and in his daily life by others who share their recollections both of darkly humorous cases and the unacceptable unmentionable dark sides which eventually seal off all human beings from one another.
After a crime of tragedic proportions occurs, Jesse's story and that of the victims and the perpetrators, here and now, plus the unmanageable then on another hill in Vietnam thirty years ago, unfold. What follows comprises an incredible novel of pain and waste, devastation and redemption, caring and investigation, revealed by passionate observation of the lunacy of existence through careful, perfect words.. But, and this is a big *but*, the novel flows like silk through the counterpoints of love, ultimate sadness, and intense meaning.
This is a modern day lawyer, detective story which encompasses inner city bleakness, evil, post traumatic shock syndrome, our *lovely* court system, the inability to share ourselves while our very core cries out to do just so, and a sense that metaphysical, mystical reality is just as real as beans.
My bottom line is that while the ideas and emotion rage rampant, the narrative is superb, nearly perfect. What a terrific story. I think it is very, very big in heart and scope, possessing a duality of the mundane and the metaphysical which meld perfectly for the reader, especially toward the conclusion of the novel.
I always yearn for the elusive words which are not forthcoming, those orbs needed for adequate expression, but inchoate, they are yet imbedded in the soul of this reader. Accused of hyperbole, so be it. This is one fine book.