The Family Tree

by Margo Glantz

Book Overview

At the heart of this brilliant and colourful Mexican novel lies the search for a family history. Using ancestral recollections, flashbacks through history, and personal memory, the author traces her family roots from pre-Revolutionary Russia to contemporary Mexico. Margo Glantz's Mexico is a mysterious world - a cultural carnival where Flash Gordon crosses paths with Columbus: a Mexico of Diego Rivera, Leon Trotsky and Frida Kahlo, hijacked by Dracula and King Kong, filled with the aromas of a kosher bakery and the echoes of jokes, some corny, some not.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1852421827
• ISBN13: 9781852421823
• Release Date: July 1991
• Publisher: Serpent's Tail
• Length: 186 Pages
• Weight: 0.65 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.6" x 5.1" x 7.8"

Customer Reviews

A fascinating glimpse into Mexican Jewish life

"The Family Tree," by Margo Glantz, is a wonderful book by a Jewish writer of Mexico. Although the jacket of the book describes "Family Tree" as a "novel," the book in fact seems to incorporate elements of family history, ethnic history, and autobiography. It is primarily written in the form of a conversation between the author/narrator and her parents, a Jewish couple who emigrated from the Ukraine to Mexico. The book has been translated into a very readable English by Susan Bassnett, and contains many delightful family photographs."The Family Tree" offers the reader a fascinating window into the lives of the Jewish immigrant community in Mexico. Glantz includes many fascinating anecdotes, such as being treated for head lice as a child, or being temporarily "converted" to Christianity by her neighbors. Her parents also recall the threat of anti-Semitic violence in both Europe and Mexico. Also, the book is peppered with interesting pop culture references: Flash Gordon, Greta Garbo, King Kong, Don Ameche, etc.I was most fascinated, however, by the parents' recollections of the Yiddish literary and theater scene in Mexico. These portions of the book underscore the importance of Yiddish as a Jewish cultural language. Overall, "The Family Tree" is a wonderful book, rich in tragedy, humor, and history.