The Rain God: A Desert Tale

ISBN: 0916485013

Author: Arturo Islas

Condition: Used

In Arturo Islas' first novel, various members of the Angel family meet the Rain God face to face, as they struggle to live and die with dignity and to understand their family's ghosts. Each of the characters in these interlocking tales has been a 'sinner' and a force in the life of Miguel Angel, a young man who finds himself in the borderland between his Mexican Catholic heritage and his North American education.

There is the child JoEl, who knows when it will rain because he smells the approach of angels in the sky, and the grandmother who entertains ghosts. And there are the deep human dilemmas-the father locked in strife with the son he loves most, the husband who loves both his wife and her best friend and longs for them to become one person, the gentle uncle who brings upon himself a violent death. The characters have a power that allows them to live in readers' minds long after the book has been laid aside.