À Los Angeles, trois générations d'immigrés mexicains s'entremêlent. Dans ce roman construit à la manière des films d'Alejandro González Inárritu ( Babel, 21 grammes ), Brando Skyhorse s'intéresse aux invisibles. Femmes de ménage, membres de gangs ou adolescentes latino fascinées par le rêve américain, tous sont tiraillés entre deux cultures et portent les stigmates d'un pays qui refuse de les intégrer. La religion des anciens a été remplacée par d'autres idoles : Madonna ou Gwen Stefani sont les nouvelles icônes d'une communauté en quête de repères.Loin des fantasmes hollywoodiens sur la " cité des anges ", Brando Skyhorse retrace le destin d'une famille, les Esperanza, et l'histoire d'un quartier, Echo Park. Unité de lieu tragique, ces rues couvertes de graffitis ont l'énergie vitale des personnages qui les traversent. Ce premier roman émouvant est un mélange de violence et de poésie, dans la lignée de Los Boys de Junot Diaz.

Les madones d'Echo Park

We slipped into this country like thieves, onto the land that once was ours.With these words, spoken by an illegal Mexican day laborer, The Madonnas of Echo Park takes us into the unseen world of Los Angeles, following the men and women who cook the meals, clean the homes, and struggle to lose their ethnic identity in the pursuit of the American dream.When a dozen or so girls and mothers gather on an Echo Park street corner to act out a scene from a Madonna music video, they find themselves caught in the crossfire of a drive-by shooting. In the aftermath, Aurora Esperanza grows distant from her mother, Felicia, who as a housekeeper in the Hollywood Hills establishes a unique relationship with a detached housewife.The Esperanzas’ shifting lives connect with those of various members of their neighborhood. A day laborer trolls the streets for work with men half his age and witnesses a murder that pits his morality against his illegal status; a religious hypocrite gets her comeuppance when she meets the Virgin Mary at a bus stop on Sunset Boulevard; a typical bus route turns violent when cultures and egos collide in the night, with devastating results; and Aurora goes on a journey through her gentrified childhood neighborhood in a quest to discover her own history and her place in the land that all Mexican Americans dream of, "the land that belongs to us again." Heralding a new young ethnic literary talent: Brando Skyhorse's first novel gives voice to the Mexican-American community in Echo Park, CA.

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