The Water Museum: Stories
Written and Narrated By: Luis Alberto Urrea
Length: 6 hrs and 22 mins
Urrea’s stellar narration aaaalways makes his work, his words, SUBLIME
Nope, not eeeeven gonna try to list the titles of each of these stories. To me, I always lose track of them anyway. I’m kinda a dork like that (Oblivious Git that I am).
From the get-go opening story of life in a town that’s past its prime, on its way to Oblivion? Sooo touching. And Urrea’s obviously been considering just what makes a society, what causes its demise: Is it when all the old folks die? Or is it when all the young folks leave?
Or is it when the town’s center, its very heart, the reason to keep getting up, keep going on, keep having the same conversations, can’t do it any more?
Along the way in these stories, concepts of what it’s like to be la Raza, or to be white, or to be Indigenous, come to the fore. Can you leave the barrio behind, or will it always drag you back, making it all a simple ringtone away, a call you shouldn’t answer, a call you MUST answer?
There’s the Iowa farming community that needs its migrant workers even tho’ it has suuuuuch hatred for all things Hispanic. Where can I get a simple hotdog? one old white guy laments—Why do you have to add your culture? Shouldn’t this be about me and being white, on the upper rung? Oh what you’re doing to me and my culture—and one migrant worker posits: Same thing Geronimo asked.
And there’s the apocalyptic look at a country with no more water, where the Water Museum is an experience no child wants to have again. There’s a difference between remembering a society, a way of life that is now gone. And no child, whose Now has ALWAYS been sans water, should have to see what others have enjoyed but which will NEVER be for them. You’ve yanked away their sense of continuity, this look at a glorious life that has nothing to do with their days.
Through all of these stories, Urrea himself narrates. I know I know, he narrates most of his work (But there’s one I’m staying the heck away from as he’s not the narrator!), but it should be noted that, good cow, the man is sooo on target with relaying exACTly what he’s trying to convey with his words. Each nuanced accent, each exclamation (And when a character of his creation screams/bellows, you’d better believe he screams/bellows as well!), the rise and fall of conversations, the innocence of discoveries. All done so well. If you’re gonna do a Urrea, make sure it’s narrated by Urrea!
Parts of The Water Museum will have you chuckling, parts will leave you breathless (A police bust that’s not about the theft the cops might catch; rather it’s about busting Mexicans, demanding citizenship papers, racially profiling the dudes in the clunky white van). Parts are poignant (A duo take a stolen canoe into poisoned and polluted waters, feeling like Louie and Clark (Lewis and Clark), seeing the universe in the rainbow oil slicks). And parts of it will make you cry out at justice for the few, not Justice For All.
Irony, hilarity, and the most beautifully spun phrases, even when a white guy tries to assassinate his cheating wife’s car, all while speeding on her Uppers, crashing on her Downers (She didn’t do THAT particular step in her 12-Step Program…). For that one, there’s the radiant heat of the day, the isolation of a long stretch of road where a car breaks down, where a soul breaks down. Add to all of this the breathless terror of a young dude who’s tapped the wrong young girl, or the kid whose dad has gone down for 35-years who now finds himself the grownup in his family, finds himself the target of the biker gang, finds himself just wanting to survive so that he can just maybe, just once, fondle the breasts of the girl in the donut shop.
Beautifully done, and I soooo love the way the man writes. A friend of mine, a writer NATurally, once worked with him, and that she could say that? Oh GOSH, that’s not name-dropping, that’s dangling a tantalizing carrot: I Have Been Near Greatness…
Could I be any MORE of a bootlicker? I think not; my adoration of the man’s work, of the man himself (Listened to an interview where he addresses, tho’ he sooo didn’t want to, the plagiarism found within American Dirt, and the poor man took the High Road and just wanted to stay the heck away from THAT), is complete.
I do, however, suggest listening to these stories before you listen to The House of Broken Angels cuz these are little bits and tastes, small things that will flavor the Whole of the Sumptuousness of what is that audiobook (-Again- narrated by himself). If you’ve already been enthralled by his novels, these little stories will leave you hungering for more, for deeper works. They’ll have you Googling him to find out when the heck he’s gonna do the NEXT extraordinary thing.
Lovely, beautiful, horrific. You know: Urrea’s usual blending of sights and sounds and scents and longings and mishaps. The joy of failing, the sorrow of getting what you want.
Yup, the usual.
And isn’t that just Grand?!
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