Crux by Jean Guerrero

Crux

A Cross-border Memoir

Jean Guerrero

Random House Publishing Group · Print & ebook · July 17, 2018

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • A daughter’s quest to understand her charismatic and troubled father, an immigrant who crosses borders both real and illusory—between sanity and madness, science and spirituality, life and death PEN America Literary Award Winner • “The kind of memoir that seems to redefine the genre.”—Los Angeles Review of Books From renowned journalist Jean Guerrero, here is the haunting story of a daughter’s mission to save her father from his demons and to save herself from destruction.

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Who it’s for
Measured, reflective memoir with enough edge for a book-club conversation.
Genres
Personal Memoirs, Hispanic & Latino Biography, Immigration & Emigration
Published
Random House Publishing Group, July 17, 2018

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About this book

NEW YORK TIMES EDITORS’ CHOICE • A daughter’s quest to understand her charismatic and troubled father, an immigrant who crosses borders both real and illusory—between sanity and madness, science and spirituality, life and death PEN America Literary Award Winner • “The kind of memoir that seems to redefine the genre.”—Los Angeles Review of Books From renowned journalist Jean Guerrero, here is the haunting story of a daughter’s mission to save her father from his demons and to save herself from destruction.

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Marco Antonio was raised in Mexico, then migrated to California, where he met Jean’s mother, Jeannette, a Puerto Rican woman just out of med school. Marco is a self-taught genius at building things—including mythologies about himself and the hidden forces that drive us. When he goes on the run, Jean follows and embarks on an investigative journey between cultures and languages, the earthly and the mystical, truth and fiction. A distinctive memoir about the search for an elusive parent, Crux is both a riveting adventure story and a profoundly original exploration of the mysteries of our world, our most intimate relationships, and ourselves. “[Guerrero] writes poetically about borders as a metaphor for the boundary of identity between father and daughter and the porous connective tissues that bind them.”—The National Book Review

Crossing Lines

Measured, reflective memoir with enough edge for a book-club conversation.

Come here for

  • cross-border memoir texture
  • family, history, and identity in one register

Expect

  • layered personal and public perspective
  • serious, contemplative pacing

Where it sits

Hispanic & Latino Biography88%
Personal Memoirs50%
Immigration & Emigration28%

Percentages are BookFrontier’s reading of the book.

Publisher categories

  • Hispanic & Latino Biography
  • Personal Memoirs
  • Hispanic American Studies
Authors
Jean Guerrero
Publisher
Random House Publishing Group
Published
July 17, 2018
Format
Print & ebook
Reading lane
Hispanic & Latino Biography