Has anyone here read either of these novels? 

Have you ever read any Chicanx literature?

Can you think of any other works of literature that reflect what is currently happening in LA?

Here is synopsis of *Their Dogs Came with Them*, which I prefer between the two: “In the barrio of East Los Angeles, a group of unbreakable young women struggle to find their way through the turbulent urban landscape of the 1960s. Androgynous Turtle is a homeless gang member. Ana devotes herself to a mentally ill brother. Ermila is a teenager poised between childhood and political consciousness. And Tranquilina, the daughter of missionaries, finds hope in faith. In prose that is potent and street tough, Viramontes has choreographed a tragic dance of death and rebirth. Julia Alvarez has called Viramontes ‘one of the important multicultural voices of American literature.’”

And here is a synopsis of *Under the Feet of Jesus*: “At the center of this powerful tale is Estrella, a girl about to cross the perilous border to womanhood. What she knows of life comes from her mother, who has survived abandonment by her husband in a land that treats her as if she were invisible, even though she and her children pick the crops of the farms that feed its people. But within Estrella, seeds of growth and change are stirring. And in the arms of Alejo, they burst into a full, fierce flower as she tastes the joy and pain of first love. Pushed to the margins of society, she learns to fight back and is able to help the young farmworker she loves when his ambitions and very life are threatened in a harvest of death.”

I read both of these novels in a grad seminar on US Latinx literature and greatly enjoyed them. I just wanted to make you all aware of Viramontes’ work in case you weren’t already. Hopefully she publishes another novel in the not-too-distant future!

Los Angeles as of late has had me thinking a lot about Helena María Viramontes’ novels Under the Feet of Jesus (1995) and Their Dogs Came with Them (2007)