Motorcycle Ride on the Sea of Tranquility

by Patricia Santana

It's April 1969, and fourteen-year-old Yolanda Sahag�n can hardly wait to see her favorite brother, Chuy, newly returned from Vietnam. But when he arrives at the Welcome Home party the family has prepared in his honor it's clear that the war has changed him. The transformation of Chuy is only one of the challenges that Yolanda and the rest of her family face. This powerful coming-of-age novel, winner of the 1999 Chicano/Latino Literary Contest, is a touching and funny account of a summer that is still remembered as a crossroads in American life. Yolanda and her brothers and sisters learn how to be men and women and how to be Americans as well as Mexican Americans.


A captivating portrayal the novel is challenging, warm, provocative, often humorous, always engaging. --Rudolfo Anaya


Patricia Santana's Motorcycle Ride on the Sea of Tranquillity will take you on an exhilarating journey through the tortured landscape of the late 1960s, and show you how the stench of a brutal foreign war and revolutionary winds at home swept into the lives on one Mexican American family in Southern California. Santana takes her place among those new Chicana writers who are refashioning the face of American literature for the twenty-first century. --Jorge Mariscal, University of California, San Diego, author of Aztlan and Viet Nam: Chicano and Chicana Experiences of the War

Genres: Young Adult

276 pages, Paperback

First published February 22, 2002

About the author

Patricia Santana’s first novel, Motorcycle Ride on the Sea of Tranquility (University of New Mexico Press, 2002), was selected as a Best Books for Young Adults 2003 by the American Library Services Association and is San Diego Magazine’s 2003 Book Award winner in fiction. Her novel is part of the California Readers' Collection 2003. In manuscript form, Motorcycle Ride on the Sea of Tranquility was the 1999 winner of the University of California Chicano/Latino Literary Contest.

Patricia's second novel, Ghosts of El Grullo (University of New Mexico Press, 2008), is the winner of the Before Columbus American Book Award, the San Diego Book Award in Fiction, and the Premio Aztlán Award which was presented at the National Latino Writers Conference. Both novels have been required reading in colleges and universities. They have also been selected as book club reads by a variety of literacy programs as well as numerous organizations dealing with at-risk students.

Patricia comes from a Mexican immigrant family. She was born and raised in San Diego, and along with her eight siblings and parents, lived in a small home a few miles north of the Mexican border. Patricia received her B.A. in Spanish and English Literature from the University of California, San Diego and her M.A. in Comparative Literature from the University of California, Los Angeles. Patricia has been a presenter and keynote speaker at multiple colleges and universities. She is currently working on a new novel.

Reviews

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very good piece of Chicano literature that deals mostly with the experiences of a young Mexican-American girl dealing with her family and her own sexuality, as well as with her troubled older brother who has returned from Vietnam. It had the feel of a YA book, and I think younger readers will like it (though parents might want to review it first because of some difficult sections, language, and views). To me it felt "truthful," though, reflecting accurately life in San Diego and relations within a family, especially from a female viewpoint.

[Irene Gonzales · Rating 5 out of 5]

I loved this story, I'm a 68 year old Mexican American so I could relate to this book, I also had 3 cousins who served in the Vietnam War, they too came back changed, we were not prepared, now we know the damage war does but back then nobody talked about the draft.

[Melva Clark · Rating 3 out of 5]

Patricia Santana has written a story of the life of one family, the Sahagun. It is in the 60's and explores growing up in a family that has been touched in a harmful way by the Vietnam war.

[Rori H · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book made me feel a lot. Just in general, a lot of feelings, some good some bad, some a mix of both. Very very beautiful work

[Christopher Ravenscroft · Rating 2 out of 5]

Some good concepts but really poorly written and executed (the seemingly accidental incest subplot) also the discussion of ptsd is not the best.

[Julie Failla Earhart · Rating 5 out of 5]

I remember reading this book years ago and loving it. Since I can’t remember exactly when, I checked the copyright page, a first edition from 2002. I checked Amazon and it says 2004. I just remember loving it. I’ve had its follow up, ghosts of el grullo, on my shelf for years. I wanted to read that, so I knew that I had to go back and read this one so the story would be fresh.

The time is 1969. Vietnam is raging. Chuy Sahagun is coming home from the war, and one of his sisters (there are five) is so excited. Chuy is fourteen-year-old Yolanda’s favorite of her four brothers. The story opens as the family is preparing for Chuy to arrive at their San Diego suburb home. The decorations are going up, the food is being prepared, and the music is being selected. No one know for sure when Chuy will arrive, but they want to be ready.

When he does arrive, it is obvious that he is not the same person. He hardly speaks, and stands at attention. The family feels the strangeness, yet don’t push him. After only a few days at home, he takes off on a motorcycle, without a word to anyone, which he has just acquired.

The Sahagun family is quite worried, but life goes on. We see Yoli struggle to grow up in a three-bedroom home where eleven people (well, now that Chuy is gone, ten) people live.

After four months away with barely any contact, Chuy arrives home on July 20, the day Neil Armstrong walks on the moon. Chuy pulls up just as the event is about to happen and the family misses it. Chuy still hasn’t returned to his former self, and winds up being diagnosed with PTSD and in and out of the VA hospital.

Yoli is the narrator or this first-person tale about life growing up in the summer of ‘69, when America was changing faster than a teenager’s body. Chuy and his struggle to adapt once he’s back home is the catalyst that propels this novel.

I didn’t like care for motorcycle ride on the sea of tranquility as much as I did when I first read it. It’s a great read, but the Spanish words that weren’t translated made it seem a little choppy. Still, I found that old fondness for Yoli’s wonderful voice, which prompts motorcycle ride on the sea of tranquility to receive 5 out of 5 stars in Julie’s world.

[Sandra Lopez · Rating 4 out of 5]

Review: Chuy is back from war, but he is different; and the whole family is wondering why, especially his "favorite" sister, Yolanda. So, right away, we are presented with a mystery. Who is this guy and what happened to him? Then Chuy runs off on his Harley and disappears. It is at this time that Yolanda and the family reminisce about Chuy and how it used to be with their family. And while Chuy is "missing," Yolanda continues to grow into her teen years, oblivious to her own femininity and the male psyche. It's like "The (Latina) Wonder Years," a story of a youth coming of age as world history--war, TV, music, the 60's--happens all around her.

At times, the story went off track when the main character started telling the history of their roots and the "American" dream--all boring, really. And although this book was very well-written for the most part, you did run into some sentences that were quite ambiguous. Don't be fooled by the cover, which looks like something that was crudely spliced together in Photoshop; this book is actually pretty good. The author writes with such poignant sensitivity and beauty. Full of mystery and intriguing wonder.

[This review was originally posted on Livin' la vida Latina]

[L V · Rating 4 out of 5]

Reviewed by: Sandra Lopez, author of "Esperanza" and "Beyond the Gardens"
Member of Livin' la vida Latina

Review: Chuy is back from war, but he is different; and the whole family is wondering why, especially his "favorite" sister, Yolanda. So, right away, we are presented with a mystery. Who is this guy and what happened to him? Then Chuy runs off on his Harley and disappears. It is at this time that Yolanda and the family reminisce about Chuy and how it used to be with their family. And while Chuy is "missing," Yolanda continues to grow into her teen years, oblivious to her own femininity and the male psyche. It's like "The (Latina) Wonder Years," a story of a youth coming of age as world history--war, TV, music, the 60's--happens all around her.

At times, the story went off track when the main character started telling the history of their roots and the "American" dream--all boring, really. And although this book was very well-written for the most part, you did run into some sentences that were quite ambiguous. Don't be fooled by the cover, which looks like something that was crudely spliced together in Photoshop; this book is actually pretty good. The author writes with such poignant sensitivity and beauty. Full of mystery and intriguing wonder.

[Elizabeth · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is a very well written book! I think it really grasps the "Machismo" we see in alot of the Mexican/Latino Homes. It takes place in the 1960s the Shahagun is preparing a Welcome back party for there son Chuy who is coming back from the Vietnam War. She has to suffer through the psycological breakdown from Chuy who came back permanently damaged. She also begins questioning the way things run at home, the traditional Mexican family how she is treated extremely different then her brothers, they get extreme liberty while she doesn't. She then starts growing as a woman and the sexual desires come with it... she see's first hand how her older sister is not willing to stay within the lines of the traditional Mex fam and really upsets her family by dating someone thats not mexican. Then her sister gets pregnant and decides too take an extreme step in order to not let down her family.... I love this book becuase I could really understand what she was feeling the questions she asked herself. The anger of having to put up with a family were the man ruled. This reminded me alot of my own family and stuff like this still happens in our days...

[Carolyn Browne · Rating 5 out of 5]

"When my brother Chuy returned from Vietnam in April of 1969, our sweet peas were in full bloom. Entwined in the fence enclosing our yard, sinewy tendrils and translucent flowers reached up to the heavens, while unruly ones poked out from the worn picket fence, which had grown lopsided from the weight of bountiful sweet pea vines every spring."Thus begins a sensitive story of a Mexican American family living in Southern California during a time of social and political upheavel that would challenge their culture and test the strength of their family ties. It is a refreshing and captivating look at a warm,vibrant, courageous and often humerous family of a culture that is frequently portrayed as morally and intellectually impoverished.You will be engaged from beginning to end.

[Marianna Randazzo · Rating 5 out of 5]

Patricia Santana has struck a chord on so many levels. She went back into the 1960's where even as children we knew they were turbulent, yet exhilarating times. Her expression of adolescent curiosities, love and confusion are as prevalent today as they were during that time, making this a novel that most people will have a self-to-text connection with. Being the child of immigrants I easily related to the home she grew up in and the traditions of the world during that time.
The novel is a well crafted. It makes us look at the world through the eyes of truly plausible, interesting characters and gives us some insights of the devastating aftermath of the Vietnam War.

[Liz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fabulous Latina coming of age story. Takes place in San Diego during Vietnam War. Shows close family relationships, budding self awareness and a brother who is forever changed by the horrors of war. Patricia Santana was at Page One festival. She's an incredible writer, won American Book Award

[Heidi · Rating 4 out of 5]

1960s CA, good 14-year-old sister POV

[Kevin King · Rating 2 out of 5]

it was a "good read"

[Words Alive · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great book! Students loved this read. And the author came to speak to the classrooms.

[Sophia · Rating 5 out of 5]

I don’t think I’ve liked a book I read for school as much as this one. Shocked I’ve never heard of it before.