Rating: 
Summary: Not quite as good as Sorrow's Kitchen, but still terrific
Review: A somewhat unlikely premise forms the basis of this engrossing novel of love, separation, women, strength, survival, and compassion. Serafina, an illegal immigrant, is mistakenly separated from her toddler daughter and sent back to Mexico where she gets trapped caring for her ailing mother. Her daughter treks through the CA welfare system, one foster home to another, and emerges as a pregnant teenager.
The majority of the book parallels Serafina's trek north, across the border once again to search for her child, while Elvia does the same in the opposite direction, searching for her mother.
Frankly, I loved the story and the writing.
Rating: 
Summary: Highwire Act
Review: An Indian woman from Mexico travels to the U.S. for work. She meets an American and has a child with him. She is deported and has to leave the child behind. Years later the woman returns and tries to find the child, who is also seeking her.The conflicts of culture and the struggles of people to make a living and overcome legal restrictions make the story dramatic. Interesting characters of varying backgounds abound. The harsh landscape of the Southwest, beautifully described, is the stage. The story is suspenseful and remains in the reader's mind. Excellent.
Rating: 
Summary: Sympathetic but Nothing New
Review: I initially found that the characters and plot in this book reminded me of Barbara Kingsolver's Bean Trees. As I read further I still felt the parallels but the plot and characters are truly individuals. The insights into life near the border are eye-opening and tragic at times but seem realistic (although I have had no exposure to that part of the country except in books). It is a part of the country, a way of life that I have no exposure to and I felt as if I was truly a witness to all that happend in Larry's Elvia, and Sarafina's lives. I could not put this book down - it is the first book by Susan Straight that I have read. I also felt some similarities in style (?) to T. Caraghessan Boyle (Tortilla flat) - but maybe it was just the southwest setting!!
Rating:
Summary: eye opening
Review: I initially found that the characters and plot in this book reminded me of Barbara Kingsolver's Bean Trees. As I read further I still felt the parallels but the plot and characters are truly individuals. The insights into life near the border are eye-opening and tragic at times but seem realistic (although I have had no exposure to that part of the country except in books). It is a part of the country, a way of life that I have no exposure to and I felt as if I was truly a witness to all that happend in Larry's Elvia, and Sarafina's lives. I could not put this book down - it is the first book by Susan Straight that I have read. I also felt some similarities in style (?) to T. Caraghessan Boyle (Tortilla flat) - but maybe it was just the southwest setting!!
Rating:
Summary: Motherhood is powerful
Review: I loved this book. I work with young teenagers who are pregnant and everything here rings so true. Elvia has the language and the thoughts of many real-life girls. Serafina also seems very real with the immigration policies and farmworker issues of our times. I liked the way Susan Straight wove the stories of mother and daughter and their search for each other together. A highwire moon balanced on the utility line and this novel was so balanced for me.
Rating:
Summary: Motherhood is powerful
Review: I loved this book. I work with young teenagers who are pregnant and everything here rings so true. Elvia has the language and the thoughts of many real-life girls. Serafina also seems very real with the immigration policies and farmworker issues of our times. I liked the way Susan Straight wove the stories of mother and daughter and their search for each other together. A highwire moon balanced on the utility line and this novel was so balanced for me.
Rating:
Summary: Sympathetic but Nothing New
Review: I probably would not have heard of this book had it not been one of New York's award finalists, the one I am sure they say represents my own culture and upbringing in California and its border. I came into the book a little suspicious. I came away a lot less so, and that was because I didn't think it was either too bad or very good. Though to a certain degree the protagonists were supposed to be an undocumented Mexican woman and her daughter, fathered by a poor Anglo, the novel doesn't try to go too deep inside their head. Rather, the simple plot's most interesting details are about the Anglos the daughter grows up with; otherwise it does not go beyond what's already well-known to everyone except apparently those on the east who must still find the story of crossing the Mexican border fascinating and new. Straight didn't add anything unique to that. I found the sentimental story of the daughter and mother longing to meet up with each other after so many years very romanticized and hard to follow. If you want to read about the border, read Ruben Martinez's new one, which is powerful. If you want to read the best book of fiction published last year, as this one was, but inside a Chicano experience, read Dagoberto Gilb's beautiful "Woodcuts of Women."
Rating:
Summary: An emotional eye opener
Review: Susan Straight delivers a tremendous novel which deals with a wide range of current social issues. Teenage pregnancy, migrant workers, drug abuse, and the foster care system mix in a surprisingly fast paced page-turner. Buy it, read it, enjoy it.
Rating:
Summary: 3 1/2 Stars for Sandy and Elvia
Review: Susan Straight's "Highwire Moon" is a very earnest, factual, precisely written novel of what is a very emotional, pathos-filled subject: a mother and her daughter's quest to be reunited after having been torn apart through no fault of their own. What makes this story different is that Sarafina, the mother, is a "Mixtec" or native Mexican woman from Oaxaca, Mexico and her daughter Elvia is an American, born of Larry Foley, a day laborer a couple steps above Sarafina in the social stata. It is this clash of cultures, to quote an old phrase, which adds depth and resonance to this already emotional situation. Sarafina, an illegal alien, is deported as a result of a freak traffic accident and Elvia, asleep in the car at the time is erroneously placed in foster care as a result. Larry searches for Elvia but it takes 10 years for him to find her. Sarafina spends the same amount of time trying to to make it back to the USA from Mexico while also having to deal with her mother's declining health. Unfortunately, Straight tells this story in an almost bloodless manner, dry of emotion...a sociology tract. Straight is using this novel as a way of informing us of the plight of the illegal alien and thus is more interested in the "world view" rather than the specifics. It is only in Elvia's scenes with a foster mother, Sandy Narlette that Straight loosens up the sociology and writes with candor and feeling. Sandy is Elvia's anchor, her home the only place where she always felt/feels wanted and loved and Sandy returns this love in kind. If only the entire novel would have the same emotional weight as these scenes between Sandy and Elvia. An interesting note is that "Highwire Moon" has been nominated for a National Book Award in Fiction. And to the National Book Award committee this subject matter must have seemed as foreign as a novel set in Greenland..maybe more so. But for those of us living in a border state this is a situation that we face every day..it is a part of our lives. Susan Straight has the writing chops to produce a novel of emotional weight and resonance. Sad for us in "Highwire Moon" her interests lay elsewhere.
Rating:
Summary: 3 1/2 Stars for Sandy and Elvia
Review: Susan Straight's "Highwire Moon" is a very earnest, factual, precisely written novel of what is a very emotional, pathos-filled subject: a mother and her daughter's quest to be reunited after having been torn apart through no fault of their own. What makes this story different is that Sarafina, the mother, is a "Mixtec" or native Mexican woman from Oaxaca, Mexico and her daughter Elvia is an American, born of Larry Foley, a day laborer a couple steps above Sarafina in the social stata. It is this clash of cultures, to quote an old phrase, which adds depth and resonance to this already emotional situation. Sarafina, an illegal alien, is deported as a result of a freak traffic accident and Elvia, asleep in the car at the time is erroneously placed in foster care as a result. Larry searches for Elvia but it takes 10 years for him to find her. Sarafina spends the same amount of time trying to to make it back to the USA from Mexico while also having to deal with her mother's declining health. Unfortunately, Straight tells this story in an almost bloodless manner, dry of emotion...a sociology tract. Straight is using this novel as a way of informing us of the plight of the illegal alien and thus is more interested in the "world view" rather than the specifics. It is only in Elvia's scenes with a foster mother, Sandy Narlette that Straight loosens up the sociology and writes with candor and feeling. Sandy is Elvia's anchor, her home the only place where she always felt/feels wanted and loved and Sandy returns this love in kind. If only the entire novel would have the same emotional weight as these scenes between Sandy and Elvia. An interesting note is that "Highwire Moon" has been nominated for a National Book Award in Fiction. And to the National Book Award committee this subject matter must have seemed as foreign as a novel set in Greenland..maybe more so. But for those of us living in a border state this is a situation that we face every day..it is a part of our lives. Susan Straight has the writing chops to produce a novel of emotional weight and resonance. Sad for us in "Highwire Moon" her interests lay elsewhere.
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