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Bulletproof Vest: The Ballad of an Outlaw and His Daughter
A New York Times Editors' Choice book The haunting story of a daughter's struggle to confront her father's turbulent-and often violent-legacy After a fourteen-year estrangement, Maria Venegas returns to Mexico from the United States to visit her father, who is living in the old hacienda where both he and she were born. While spending the following summers and holidays together, herding cattle and fixing barbed-wire fences, he begins sharing stories with her, tales of a dramatic life filled with both intense love and brutal violence-from the final conversations he had with his own father, to his extradition from the United States for murder, to his mother's pride after he shot a man for the first time at the age of twelve.
Written in spare, gripping prose, Bulletproof Vest is Venegas's reckoning with her father's difficult legacy. Moving between Mexico and New York, between past and present, Venegas traces her own life and her father's as, over time, a new closeness and understanding develops between them. Bulletproof Vest opens with a harrowing ambush on Venegas's father while he's driving near his home in Mexico. He survives the assault-but years later the federales will find him dead near the very same curve, and his daughter will be left with not only the stories she inherited from him but also a better understanding of the violent undercurrent that shaped her father's life as well as her own.
Written in spare, gripping prose, Bulletproof Vest is Venegas's reckoning with her father's difficult legacy. Moving between Mexico and New York, between past and present, Venegas traces her own life and her father's as, over time, a new closeness and understanding develops between them. Bulletproof Vest opens with a harrowing ambush on Venegas's father while he's driving near his home in Mexico. He survives the assault-but years later the federales will find him dead near the very same curve, and his daughter will be left with not only the stories she inherited from him but also a better understanding of the violent undercurrent that shaped her father's life as well as her own.
320 pages, Hardcover
First published June 17, 2014
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews
September 10, 2014
Bulletproof Vest: The Ballad of an Outlaw and His Daughter pays homage to a man, a father, and a larger-than-life style made completely believable by Maria Venegas’ excellent writing. Not your typical memoir, almost a novel in its scope, I was captivated by this story from beginning to end. Caught up in the waves of the author’s emotion, I began to feel I personally knew this family, was a part of it. It’s an outlaw’s story, a daughter’s tribute, and a look at Mexico from the inside rather than the “other side.” Maria Venegas doesn’t glorify her father’s way of living, she doesn’t spare him any of her anger, yet she loves him and it’s this love that makes the book so compelling and had me wishing that Jose would cheat death yet another time.
September 6, 2014
A remarkable often poetic chronicle of a young woman's reconnection and reconciliation with her absentee, alcoholic, criminal Mexican father. While I sometimes found myself asking why, I had a hard time putting this book down and in the end emerged with profound respect for the author as she tries to explain away her father's many sins. Great read.
June 7, 2022
The story is spell-binding, though dark and sad, but what kept me reading was the author´s gift of narrative: shifting tenses, settings, even persons so deftly that I had to go back to see how she had done it.
November 4, 2014
Maria Venegas’ Bulletproof Vest: The Ballad of an Outlaw and His Daughter is at once a memoir and a biography of probably one of the most fascinating gangster you’ve never heard of. Throughout the pages, Venegas charts the story of her father, an outlaw well known and oft wanted by the authorities of Mexico and Chicago, a man who was said to cheat death time and time again, and how this legend’s life intersects with her own.
Of course, the violent stories of blood and revenge, love and limelight don’t come to Venegas right away. The girl grows up in the same hacienda her father was born in with a vague sense of the danger and the reputation surrounding her father. Even after they move to the United States, to Chicago, it’s normal for Maria and her sisters to hear a row of gunshots go off, whether in celebration or as a threat. The girl’s only a child when she sees the violence firsthand – her father stumbling into the house with a hand trying to hold in the blood, his friend dead in the yard due to, what the newspapers would later report as “an argument over the last beer” (if only it was so simple).
Like so many outlaws, he disappears, leaving behind Maria, her mother and siblings for years. Men might be following him, and the thought that these men might harm his family does nothing to stall his flight.
Understandably, his children grow up hating him, fearing for him, waiting for a call one day saying he was shot in a bar, killed by the roadside, something, so the man that has been as good as dead to them for years can finally be buried.
To be fair, the man tries, sort of. He calls. Even though his children rarely talk to him. Maria herself really has nothing to say. It’s too hard to explain her own life – how hard she fights to get into college, her move to New York, the sacrifices she has too make too young – to someone so distant.
Fourteen years go by with this estrangement and then, Maria decides to visit him.
It’s so strange to watch the tenderness between the two – in the missing years, has her father gone soft? Of course not, the man has still killed again and again. Sometimes, simply because he’s already pointed the gun at another man’s face and after he’s pointed it, there’s no stepping down. Yet with Maria, there’s a newfound role of father in this man. He weakens, shows how much he wants her to stay, lets her into his life, divulges his secrets and the tales of his past. What didn’t work as a little girl-father relationship succeeds as a father-friend.
Of course, the story of her father is still difficult. He’s a man who kills, threatens, hurts and walks away with little to show for it. He’s a man that did abandon her family in times of need. Yet, he’s always her dad, her flesh and blood, and even further, the hero of epic tales and legends throughout the land. Bulletproof Vest never forgets the struggle and the tension between these two versions of her father, the hero and the villain.
Of course, the violent stories of blood and revenge, love and limelight don’t come to Venegas right away. The girl grows up in the same hacienda her father was born in with a vague sense of the danger and the reputation surrounding her father. Even after they move to the United States, to Chicago, it’s normal for Maria and her sisters to hear a row of gunshots go off, whether in celebration or as a threat. The girl’s only a child when she sees the violence firsthand – her father stumbling into the house with a hand trying to hold in the blood, his friend dead in the yard due to, what the newspapers would later report as “an argument over the last beer” (if only it was so simple).
Like so many outlaws, he disappears, leaving behind Maria, her mother and siblings for years. Men might be following him, and the thought that these men might harm his family does nothing to stall his flight.
Understandably, his children grow up hating him, fearing for him, waiting for a call one day saying he was shot in a bar, killed by the roadside, something, so the man that has been as good as dead to them for years can finally be buried.
To be fair, the man tries, sort of. He calls. Even though his children rarely talk to him. Maria herself really has nothing to say. It’s too hard to explain her own life – how hard she fights to get into college, her move to New York, the sacrifices she has too make too young – to someone so distant.
Fourteen years go by with this estrangement and then, Maria decides to visit him.
It’s so strange to watch the tenderness between the two – in the missing years, has her father gone soft? Of course not, the man has still killed again and again. Sometimes, simply because he’s already pointed the gun at another man’s face and after he’s pointed it, there’s no stepping down. Yet with Maria, there’s a newfound role of father in this man. He weakens, shows how much he wants her to stay, lets her into his life, divulges his secrets and the tales of his past. What didn’t work as a little girl-father relationship succeeds as a father-friend.
Of course, the story of her father is still difficult. He’s a man who kills, threatens, hurts and walks away with little to show for it. He’s a man that did abandon her family in times of need. Yet, he’s always her dad, her flesh and blood, and even further, the hero of epic tales and legends throughout the land. Bulletproof Vest never forgets the struggle and the tension between these two versions of her father, the hero and the villain.
October 5, 2014
Wow! I simply could not put this book down. Amazon gives a good but simple introduction to this book...
"After a fourteen-year estrangement, Maria Venegas returns to Mexico from the United States to visit her father, who is living in the old hacienda where both he and she were born. While spending the following summers and holidays together, herding cattle and fixing barbed-wire fences, he begins sharing stories with her, tales of a dramatic life filled with both intense love and brutal violence—from the final conversations he had with his own father, to his extradition from the United States for murder, to his mother’s pride after he shot a man for the first time at the age of twelve."
What that blurb didn't or perhaps couldn't convey is the formidable emotional investment you develop as you read; vacillating between horror and scorn for her father's brutality and, dare I say, affection for this emotionally crippled, complex man. In fact, by the end of Maria's book I found myself grieving for this man who, by his own words, had killed numerous men, cheated on his wife and was especially negligent of his children during their formative years.
What does this tell us about the writer Maria Venegas that she can evoke emotions such as this with spare prose and in a memoir? She's good, very good and I hope to see more work from this talented young writer.
"After a fourteen-year estrangement, Maria Venegas returns to Mexico from the United States to visit her father, who is living in the old hacienda where both he and she were born. While spending the following summers and holidays together, herding cattle and fixing barbed-wire fences, he begins sharing stories with her, tales of a dramatic life filled with both intense love and brutal violence—from the final conversations he had with his own father, to his extradition from the United States for murder, to his mother’s pride after he shot a man for the first time at the age of twelve."
What that blurb didn't or perhaps couldn't convey is the formidable emotional investment you develop as you read; vacillating between horror and scorn for her father's brutality and, dare I say, affection for this emotionally crippled, complex man. In fact, by the end of Maria's book I found myself grieving for this man who, by his own words, had killed numerous men, cheated on his wife and was especially negligent of his children during their formative years.
What does this tell us about the writer Maria Venegas that she can evoke emotions such as this with spare prose and in a memoir? She's good, very good and I hope to see more work from this talented young writer.
December 11, 2015
I'm a little more than half way through this book and here is what I am loving about it: Maria Venegas has a powerful story and understands exactly how to tell it. Her narrative voice reflects the portrait that emerges of herself, a woman who is at once part of a family yet apart from it, part of the story, yet the observer. Her self reliance has saved her yet perhaps has left her with some problems to solve in order to grow into the person she wants to be. At the same time, she tells the stories of her father -- her side and the stories he relays to her when she, after believing she never wants to see him again, goes to Mexico to be with him and to hear them. The corrido, or ballad of her father is woven throughout the story and is always heard in the background of her own stories. She writes without frills; her prose is straightforward, elegant and never a word is wasted. Her training as a playwright and actor may have helped her give us characters so deeply understood that they rise from the page real, complete. The visuals are so vibrant, reading each page is like the frame of a movie.
November 20, 2014
What an incredible story! I am amazed when I read books like Bulletproof Vest, The Glass Castle, and Projections: Encounters With My Runaway Mother. I didn't think characters like these existed in real life. What an inspiration these women are, to make a successful life from such a dysfunctional childhood. Maria Venegas writes beautifully, creating well rounded characters. I went from not caring at all for her father to feeling a great deal of sympathy for him by the end of the book. Conversely, I felt less sympathy for her mother the more I read. I was intrigued with Maria's story and would have liked to hear more about her. Perhaps another book? The only reason I didn't give it 5 stars was because I sometimes found the changes in time to be a bit abrupt.
November 5, 2014
By far my favorite book! I laughed cried though. I could not put the book down and found myself thinking about it throughout my day.
October 5, 2017
I may be in the minority but I did not find this book to be either exciting or insightful. Oddly, toward the end, the author reveals that this story of her father and their reconciliation had been a short story (the first one she had published and referred to in the book as she grew into a writer) and that she was encouraged to turn it into a book. I felt just the opposite as I kept reading the same thing over and over: that she should turn this too long too pedestrian sometimes linear sometimes unclearly flashing back book into a short story. Abandoned child seeks Father's love; reconciling the need for this love when your father is nothing short of a drunken murderer. I found the language bland, even when describing vast beauty of the outdoors. It was interesting to understand the terror of a small town falling prey to the Mexican cartels, and to see the hard work of a barely scraping by rancher. Again, would have seen a novella here at best (a la Brokeback Mountain) and do wonder what is next for this writer now that this story is told. Considered two stars but rounding up for the interesting insights of culture.
October 24, 2016
This book grabs you from the start. It is the relationship between father and daughter in across distance and together. Maria begins with not caring if her father is alive or dead but over time returns to see her outlaw father more than once in the countryside of Mexico. A complicated and complex relationship with a father who is a murderer and on the run and also kind and accepting of his daughter. A fantastic and inviting landscape and beautiful writing.
April 4, 2023
3.5 // this reads like a novel rather than a memoir, which is a testament to the larger-than-life antics of the author’s father. Their relationship was certainly complicated and I couldn’t blame her if she never reconciled with him, but their relationship as adults was sweet if not sometimes stressful to read about.
I took some points off as I was occasionally confused about characters and timeline.
I took some points off as I was occasionally confused about characters and timeline.
July 4, 2017
Interesting book. I had a hard time with some of the Spanish and the time sequence- what happened when. She is a beautiful writer in her use of setting and character details. She also shares an amazing life story.
December 11, 2017
An extraordinary memoir that pulled me in from the moment I opened its pages. Venegas' ability to show the reader the complexity of her feelings toward her father and of the man himself was inspiring. A beautiful work!
December 21, 2023
A beautifully written and painfully honest account of Maria Venegas and her father. Maria captures the complexity of relationships with a truth and vulnerability that is often missed.
One of the most important books I have ever read.
One of the most important books I have ever read.
October 29, 2017
Amazing story about the writer's outlaw father in Mexico. I'd really only give it 4 1/2 stars because the writing is very good. But the story is so compelling.
November 8, 2023
Maravilla
Que maravilla! This story pulses and contorts and breathes and soars. It digs down to the marrow and shines brightly.
Que maravilla! This story pulses and contorts and breathes and soars. It digs down to the marrow and shines brightly.
November 13, 2019
Maria Venegas’s epic tale of love and betrayal, forgiveness and hope takes the reader on a Journey than spans countries, cultures and time. On it’s face it’s the story of the complicated relationship between her father, a modern day Mexican outlaw of sorts, and herself, a successful and educated American woman. But on reflection, I think the real “border” Maria crosses in order to first understand and then to forgive her father, was not the one between the two countries or even the two vastly different cultures or even the one between a man living on the edge of society and a woman functioning squarely within it. Rather, it’s the story of transcending the borderline that lies within each of our souls. The one that separates us from love and causes us to remain in a victim consciousness. The one that when we do cross it, we become free. Bravo to Ms. Venegas for her beautifully written memoir. Even more congratulations to her for the courage it took to write it. Five stars is not enough for this one.
November 1, 2014
This is an emotional look-back at a daughter's father who, along with her mother, abandoned her as a child in Mexico (left with relatives) while they leave for the "other side" and moved to Chicago. After a couple of years, she joins them only to experience a strained relationship between her parents and herself owing mostly to the father's alcoholism and criminal behavior, the mother's intense subscription to church doctrine and her increasing indifference. The daughter (author) moves through a somewhat troubled upbringing marked by mild sporadic acts of defiance towards authority, good grades at school, a difficult sexual encounter, and her father's second abandonment after he bolts back to Mexico. She doesn't really have contact with her father for 14 years and doesn't have the desire to do so. After she moves to New York and attends college, one of her male friends encourages her to reunite with her father in Mexico. She details her multiple visits to Mexico where she gets to know her dad and his violent past (he is sent to prison for murder only to be released after his Mexican family pays a bribe); many people die and her father seems to be connected somehow. After she really gets to know her father, his surroundings and reputation, she glorifies his criminality concluding that he is almost mystical, seemingly bulletproof (he survives many near death scenarios)and possibly may have sold his soul to the devil; she seems proud of his stand-your-ground mentality and figures she has some of that DNA in her own blood. Venegas is overly descriptive and repetitive at times; she tries too hard when describing scenes in Mexico. At the end of the day, it is the compelling story of a daughter who lost and then found her father which was made possible by her efforts to go to his world.I liked the book.
December 14, 2014
*I was fortunate enough to receive this book through a Goodreads First Reads Giveaway.*
This book was a fascinating read. Maria's willingness to forgive her father and try to establish a relationship with him after all he put her through was really inspiring. It really made me think about my relationship with my own father. By the end of the book, I found myself attached to Jose. You could see that he really did love his family.
The language lover in me also enjoyed the Spanish peppered throughout the book. I certainly learned a few new words, which is always good. I especially liked how Maria didn't put an English translation for every little thing that was being said in Spanish. It was...realistic. Sometimes I understood, sometimes I could only understand from context, and sometimes I had no idea what something meant (not that this interfered with my understanding of the story in any way). And of course, when she did put a translation, it flowed very nicely. She was very skilled at showing the meaning without it being an obvious translation.
A very enjoyable book. Definitely recommended.
This book was a fascinating read. Maria's willingness to forgive her father and try to establish a relationship with him after all he put her through was really inspiring. It really made me think about my relationship with my own father. By the end of the book, I found myself attached to Jose. You could see that he really did love his family.
The language lover in me also enjoyed the Spanish peppered throughout the book. I certainly learned a few new words, which is always good. I especially liked how Maria didn't put an English translation for every little thing that was being said in Spanish. It was...realistic. Sometimes I understood, sometimes I could only understand from context, and sometimes I had no idea what something meant (not that this interfered with my understanding of the story in any way). And of course, when she did put a translation, it flowed very nicely. She was very skilled at showing the meaning without it being an obvious translation.
A very enjoyable book. Definitely recommended.
January 23, 2015
Absolutely loved this book. I love to read but lately have only had time to do during my commute to and from work.
This book was hiding in the library shelves just calling my name. I love non fiction books that have a great and almost unrealistic story to it and that's exactly what I found. The story of her father and family was so touching that it was hard to put a bookmark in whenever my train stop came up! I've been to Mexico and had such a vivid scene in my mind of everything that was going on. Even without a trip there I'm sure you could see the same since the author does a great job at detailing the story.
I appreciated the flashback stories she had in her chapters. At the beginning it was rather hard to keep up but by mid book I knew what time frame I was in.
I recommend this book to absolutely anyone looking to read. It does have some Spanish in it but Maria explains what it means as you keep reading along. Overall an absolutely great read!!
This book was hiding in the library shelves just calling my name. I love non fiction books that have a great and almost unrealistic story to it and that's exactly what I found. The story of her father and family was so touching that it was hard to put a bookmark in whenever my train stop came up! I've been to Mexico and had such a vivid scene in my mind of everything that was going on. Even without a trip there I'm sure you could see the same since the author does a great job at detailing the story.
I appreciated the flashback stories she had in her chapters. At the beginning it was rather hard to keep up but by mid book I knew what time frame I was in.
I recommend this book to absolutely anyone looking to read. It does have some Spanish in it but Maria explains what it means as you keep reading along. Overall an absolutely great read!!
November 2, 2014
A fascinating insight into a very different way of life. A well written account of the relationship between a girl and her violent father. Venegas writes clearly about a life style which will be completely alien to most Europeans. This is both about her relationship with her father, but the book also paints a vivid picture of the life of illegal immigrants coming into America, and about being Mexican - both the society of the earlier 20th century and the crazed descent into violence of recent years. This is a memoir, although at times reads like a novel. Well worth reading.
The first part of the book is mainly about her father, but gradually it becomes more about her. In truth, her life is not that interesting but her fathers is. Somehow, you come to like a man, who through the book does many despicable things. All together a thoughtful and intense account of both of them.
The first part of the book is mainly about her father, but gradually it becomes more about her. In truth, her life is not that interesting but her fathers is. Somehow, you come to like a man, who through the book does many despicable things. All together a thoughtful and intense account of both of them.
August 22, 2014
What a powerful account of life in a Mexican family written from a daughter's point of view. This is our book club selection and I can't wait to discuss it with my GNO. thanks Bonnie
The life of a Mexican family living in both the US and Mexico. there is so much brutality to understand and we see it played out in the father-daughter relationship.
It's a first novel and I can't wait to read more.
My only frustration is in the last section of the book. For me it dragged and soon I was coming in and out racing to the ultimate climax but
Bravo!!!
The life of a Mexican family living in both the US and Mexico. there is so much brutality to understand and we see it played out in the father-daughter relationship.
It's a first novel and I can't wait to read more.
My only frustration is in the last section of the book. For me it dragged and soon I was coming in and out racing to the ultimate climax but
Bravo!!!
March 30, 2014
Maria Venegas has written the kind of book that is impossible to put down once you've begun. She offers up a story that is both honest and vulnerable about the life of a Mexican American family; painting scenes that are beautiful and heartbreaking all at once. Bulletproof Vest examines the inner conflict experienced when one life is left for another and illustrates the complications and indestructible love that comes from returning to where you've come from and revisiting your roots.
August 4, 2014
Loved this beautifully written story of a woman's journey toward understanding her father and their relationship. It was like peeling back the layers of an onion in dealing with a relationship that I believe affects all of us whether or not we acknowledge that fact. Our father is our father, and we all need to figure out what that means in our context.
I also appreciated gaining some cultural insights as I read about her life as a Mexican American.
I also appreciated gaining some cultural insights as I read about her life as a Mexican American.
January 15, 2015
This memoir was exciting and honest. My dad is from the same region in Zacatecas, Mexico. He never talked much about it except to speak of the "bandidos" in the 1920's and how desolate the physical environment was. This book filled in a lot of spaces in his story for me about the people and the country. Even though the setting is more contemporary (1950's to present day). The bandidos are different now and it can still be a scaary place to go. Maia Venegas if you are reading this, thank you!
September 8, 2014
Fascinating story of a man as told by his daughter. Jose Manuel Venegas was a bandit, murderer, illegal immigrant, a criminal. He was also a father. Maria conveys the stories of his life woven with her own memories and perceptions of Jose. For many years she shut him out of her life. Then, she reconnected with him. At the very least, this is a complicated relationship.
September 5, 2014
2 things are remarkable about this book. First, is how different the daughter (and author) can be from her father and her origins. Second, is how strongly she is emotionally connected to, and influenced by, her father. It's like Monet's 12 Cathedrals; depending on how she is lighting up the scene, she is totally a Mexican outlaw / she is totally a sweet American intellectual college girl.
October 10, 2014
Just finished this fantastic memoir which I couldn't put down. Maria Venegas is a real talent! What a roller coaster of a childhood. It really speaks to the inner drive that some people have to get to an unlikely place given their circumstances. The story itself is fascinating but the writing brings it to life.
June 9, 2016
I felt the book was very well written and knowing the story is true makes it even better. I was fascinated by the father and how he lived his life. It was a hard life for his family with all that he did and the daughters relationship with him was such a mixture of emotions.
I really enjoyed reading this book and would recommend it to those who enjoy memoirs.
I really enjoyed reading this book and would recommend it to those who enjoy memoirs.
August 23, 2017
Really stunning, rich memoir with an interesting narrative style. Beautiful and difficult stuff about the author reckoning with who her father is, both beyond and including the violence he's put into the world.
Displaying 1 - 30 of 37 reviews