Capirotada: A Nogales Memoir

By Alberto Alvaro Ríos

Book Overview

Capirotada, Mexican bread pudding, is a mysterious mixture of prunes, peanuts, white bread, raisins, milk, quesadilla cheese, butter, cinnamon and cloves, Old World sugar--all this, writes Alberto Rios, and things people will not tell you.

Like its Mexican namesake, this memoir is a rich melange, stirring together Rios's memories of family, neighbors, friends, and secrets from his youth in the two Nogaleses--in Arizona and through the open gate into Mexico.

The vignettes in this memoir are not loud or fast. Yet like all of Rios's writing they are singular. Here is the story about a rickety magician, his chicken, and a group of little boys, but who plays a trick on whom? The story about the flying dancers and mortality. About going to the dentist in Mexico because it is cheaper, and maybe dangerous. About a British woman who sets out on a ship for America with the faith her Mexican GI will be waiting for her in Salt Lake City. And about the grown son who looks at his father and understands how he must provide for his own boy.

This book's uncommon offering is how it stops to address the quiet, the overlooked, the every day side of growing up. Capirotada is not about prison, or famous heroes. It is instead about the middle, which is often the most interesting place to find news.

Capirotada was selected as the 2009 ONEBOOKAZ by the Arizona State Library, Archives and Public Records.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0826320945
• ISBN13: 9780826320940
• Release Date: August 1999
• Publisher: University of New Mexico Press
• Length: 157 Pages
• Weight: 0.55 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.4" x 5.5" x 8.5"

Customer Reviews

MOST ENCHANTING ACCOUNT OF GROWING UP IN A MULTI- HUED PLACE

Sometimes you just want to read something that warms your heart. Something that is so rich and abundant with kindliness and warmth that you have to pause several times in your reading to ponder and absorb. The author must have been a very "nice boy." A nice boy with kaleidoscope vision and compassion. Nothing fancy. Just plain home-cooking, albeit sometimes spicy, like the chilaquilas recipe in the book, which incidently, is wonderful!

My Childhood Town

I have never read a book about my hometown. This book took me back to my childhood days, and what it meant to grow up in a border town where everyone knew each other, everyone was friendly, there was no racism and you could sleep with the door unlocked, leave your keys in the car and it was safe. It also brought sadness at the same time, since Nogales is not the same Nogales of the fifties, sixties, seventies and even part of the eighties. It has grown extensively, has crime, and is no longer the little friendly town I once knew and loved.Albert was at Nogales High School at the same time as I. He has truly written a BEAUTIFUL memoir of what my little childhood town was.I knew his family, his father married my husband and I and his mom pierced my ears. I was saddened by the fact that his father had passed away,(since we moved to culture shock California 10 years ago,I don't have much contact with Nogalians). But, believe me,you don't have to be from Nogales to enjoy this little marvel of a book.