THE HOUSE OF BROKEN ANGELS by Luis Alberto Urrea

Big Angel and Little Angel are half-brothers, and they are together in San Diego for Big Angel’s mother’s funeral.  Big Angel is planning to have a 70^th birthday party the next day while all of his family members are in town for the funeral.  He is dying of cancer and doesn’t expect to live out the week.  His father left Big Angel and the rest of his family to starve in Mexico while he moved to the U.S. to marry an American woman.  Although most of the story takes place over a few days, we become privy to Big Angel’s big secret and meet his siblings, offspring, cousins, etc.  I read this book in electronic format, and finally at the end I discovered a hand-drawn family tree of sorts that would have been really helpful at the beginning.  Not only could I not keep straight the generations, but some characters have nicknames, and I could not keep track of which nickname went with which person, although ultimately I’m not sure that it mattered.  The vast majority of the book seems to be an introduction to this vast array of characters, both living and dead, and the real action takes place mostly in the last quarter of the novel.  It’s one thing to become immersed in a culture that is completely different from mine, and I love having the opportunity to do that, but I still want and expect that story to hold my attention, and this one just didn’t.