Octavio Solis > Recent Status Updates

“Explaining away the ‘bad father’ and redirecting us toward the ‘good enough father’ is so often one of a mother’s covert responsibilities. … well, I did not want this man explained away. I wanted him to stay. And to my child mind, it seemed the charm of the shadow father had everything to do with all that bling, with the charms themselves, the most mystical and magical of all… being the crucifix.”

“Black hairs, like spiders’ legs above and below Papi’s knuckles… the torque of a slap across the face… Mami, keening, electricity, mascara… a snippet of nursery rhyme on a loop: ‘arroz con leche, se quiere casar’… all the detritus and minor shocks of corporeal difference… the strangeness, the tactile perversities, somehow forced inside the bony bodies of myself and my sisters and my brother…”

Yeow! Damned Good Writing. Kafkaesque. Really engaging.