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(More customer reviews)Every so often I fall in love with an author's work; it doesn't happen too often and when it does it's an experience I cherish. "Suffer Smoke," a collection of short stories by Elena Díaz Björkquist, kept me turning pages three nights in a row this week. Díaz Björkquist is a gifted story teller who in this lovely tome has turned her sights back to Morenci, Arizona, where four generations of her family worked the copper mines. Díaz Björkquist's prose is lively and direct, breathing color and life into issues that in lesser hands could seem preachy. Her characters range from the tragically unforgettable Reyna"The Hershey Bar Queen" to a spunky first grader who refuses to be forced to speak only English on the school play yard. They include men such as Pedro Garcia, who earned a Purple Heart and a Bronze Star but couldn't get a hamburger at a greasy-spoon diner. Díaz Björkquist also follows members of the Aguirre family through several generations, as they are unfairly forced to leave Morenci time and time again. Díaz Björkquist holds her magnifying glass close and does notflinch when it reveals unflattering behavior, such as greed, machismo or incest. Oppression is a constant underlying theme but the stories don't come across as heavy handed. Instead, you feel for the characters -- and for all of the people in Morenci and other such places who have had to struggle with discrimination, lack of opportunity and chauvinism. And perhaps more importantly, you admire their strength, their nobility and their ability to survive and thrive. In her preface, Díaz Björkquist writes: "Morenci is a spirit town. It lives in the memories of those who grew up there and it infiltrates our dreams. What is it about this town that continues to hold such power over us even after its demise? It's a question I ponder each time I awaken from a dream -- Morenci. Perhaps it's the spirits of people who were born there, the ones who worked in the mine until they died. No longer having a town to haunt -- they haunt us, the survivors, by recreating Morenci in our dreams." If you have a chance, read this book. I recommend it highly! By Lavonne Luquis © 1996 LatinoLink
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Suffer Smoke, a bittersweet collection of short stories, is centered on the copper mining town of Morenci Arizona. A company town, Morenci was home to generations of Mexican Americans. In the late sixties, the corporation that owned everything in sight but its employees souls saw fit to raze the town so that the open pit mine could be expanded.Elena Díaz Björkquist, a native daughter of the original Morenci, has written lucid, ardent stories about its Mexican American families and the mining company that gave them jobs and yet oppressed them. She gives voice to the characters beneath the toil, illuminating the complexity of their yearnings and frustrations and pays tribute to the indomitable spirit of a people in their battle for equality and dignity.
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