T. Ernesto Bethancourt

Another one of my childhood favorites. I first became a fan of Bethancourt through his Doris Fein mysteries, which feature a fat, Jewish, teenage, female James Bond. (Not that I've ever bought the "fat" thing. Her wanna-be boyfriends lie to her about all sorts of things -- including that they are enemy spies -- but when they describe her as "plump", I find their descriptions far more credible than Doris' self-description as "fat".)

New York City Too Far From Tampa Blues is Bethancourt's first work, a semi-autobiographical account of a Spanish American boy moving from Tampa to Brooklyn in the 1970s. Tom is bicultural (white mom, Spanish American father), and he fits smoothly in Tampa, where racial tensions are apparently low. Brooklyn, on the other hand, is swamped in always-shifting racial and cultural politics, which Tom needs to learn faster than he has the opportunity to. Tom has been told the maricónes are dangerous, yet the only practical help he gets on how to survive the street gangs is from a maricón. The street gangs are dangerous -- except when they help protect Tom from the cops. The cops are evil -- except when they help rescue Tom's little sister. Coalitions and identities keep shifting.

Tom's identities shift as well, now trying to fit into the schema of Spanish pride his father dictates to him, now trying to survive the streets in a Catholic schoolboy uniform, now blending into the fringes of public school life, now masquerading (along with his Italian best friend) as half of an Irish singing duo. He spends most of the book trying to learn how to get by, to negotiate the cracks between the different social groups. Eventually, though, he finds success (you guessed it) singing songs of his own composition about his experience as a boy from Tampa stranded in New York City -- "The New York City Too Far From Tampa Blues" -- and even recording the song with a major record label. His success has notes of reclaiming his Spanish identity -- the rock-star outfits so admired by everyone at the studio were embroidered by his Abuelita in the old Spanish style; the song has a bongo track that makes all sorts of problems for the recording engineers. Yet the story's resolution isn't about returning to his roots, but about synthesizing his roots into a self-invented, very personal identity: the rock-star threads are described as a cross between trajes de luces and David Cassidy; the duo retain their fake-Irish name "The Griffon Brothers"; Tom's Abuelita embroiders a gleaming grifo -- an animal that itself is a little bit of one thing and a little bit of another -- on the back of their outfits.

Tom has an upbeat attitude and a fine eye for the absurd, even when he's trapped in a corner between his father and the Comanches. The broad-strokes portrayal of Brooklyn is a bit heavy on the primary-colors, but it's portrayed by Tom, who hasn't been there long enough to have a fine-points understanding of the place. And Tom's self-concious too-cool jive ("threads", "heavy", "dig") makes me giggle, especially when contrasted against his naivete ("I didn't know maricónes like ice cream"). It's a nicely done book.… (más)

4171 The Dog Days of Arthur Cane, by T. Ernesto Bethancourt (read 4 June 2006) This was published in 1976 and is the story of a boy, 16, on Long Island who turns into a dog for a month or so. I found the book appealingly readable. If Kafka can have a man turn into a bug, or H. F. Saint have a man be invisible, or David Garnett have a lady turn into a fox there really is no reason why a boy can't turn into a dog, is there? This is a boys' book, as is the superlative Where the Red Fern Grows (read 28 May 1994 and never forgotten), and I found I was eager to read it to see what happens. I felt joy over each success of the dog (ex-boy) who can't talk but can write, and anguished over each of his troubles. I really enjoyed this book!… (más)