Where I share my love of books with reviews, features, giveaways and memes. Family and needlepoint are thrown in from time to time.
Showing posts with label Madewell Brown. Show all posts
Showing posts with label Madewell Brown. Show all posts

Wednesday, May 6, 2009

Wondrous Words Wednesday 5-6-2009



Wondrous Words Wednesday is a weekly meme where we share new (to us) words that we’ve encountered in our reading. To join in the fun, post your words on your blog and then leave a message over at Bermudaonion's Blog!


My words this week are from Madewell Brown by Rick Collignon.

Pendejo - Used like this: "I'm talking about the pendejo nigger and you don't even know that."

Definition: Spanish slang word for idiot or stupid.

Arroyos - Used like this: It ws a rocky, dry stretch of land, scarred deep with arroyos.

Definition: A deep gully cut by an intermittent stream; a dry gulch.

Viejos - Used like this: He would drive by the trailer where Nemecio lived and the old adobes where the viejos would live out the rest of their lives in quiet.

Definition: old, elderly

Most of these words I could figure out due to the way they are used, but when I am listing words here, I try to take them out of context and then see if I would know what they would have meant! What new words did you learn this week?

Tuesday, May 5, 2009

Madewell Brown by Rick Collignon (Book Review)

Title: Madewell Brown
Author: Rick Collignon
Publisher: Unbridled Books
Available: May 2009
ISBN-13: 978-1-932961-65-2
Genre: Fiction
This ARC was provided to me by Unbridled Books.

First sentence: Of all of them, Obie Poole was the only one who ever came back.

This is the story of Madewell Brown, told in flashbacks by his friend and fellow ballplayer Obie Poole. Obie and Madewell grew up in South Cairo, Illinois and together with a band of other boys created the South Cairo Greys - an African-American baseball team. For most of the players, the team was the only family they ever really had. As you can tell from the first sentence, Obie is the only one who ever returned to South Cairo - all the other ones dropped out or died or were killed while they were on the road. Madewell just walked off the pitcher's mound in El Paso, Texas and Obie never did know what happened to him.

Many years later, back in South Cairo, a young girl named Rachel wanders by Obie's house - he recognizes her at once as the granddaughter of Madewell Brown. Over the years they form an unlikely friendship, as she provides him company and an outlet for all his stories - and he provides her a link to her past and becomes her surrogate grandfather. When Obie dies, he leaves his few possessions to her - among them a box filled with his memoirs. As she begins to read, she longs to believe that his stories of his baseball days were true.

In Guadalupe, New Mexico Ruffino Trujillo tells his son Cipriano a tale about a black man that he encountered out on the Mesa when he was a boy. It is the last and pretty much the only story, that he shared with his son about his childhood. Cipriano is perplexed by the story, but searches and finds a canvas bag in his father's shed with the name Madewell Brown on it. It is old, waterstained, covered with dust. Inside is an old blanket, some clothes, a photo of the South Cairo greys and a letter addressed to Obie Poole. Not knowing what to make of his father's story or what to do with the belongings, he mails the letter. It falls into the hands of Rachel.

As the stories converge, Madewell's history is told and what really happened up on the Mesa is divulged. It is told in simple language, but hints at the violence and racism that existed in that time.

This is the fourth book in Collignon's Guadalupe series, and I enjoyed it enough that I am going to look for the first three. It was an easy to read book, which would be good for a lazy summer day sitting on the porch with a glass of tea.

The first four books are Perdido, The Journal of Antonio Montoya, and A Santo in the Image of Cristobal Garcia.

Teaser Tuesday 5-5-2009


TEASER TUESDAYS asks you to:
Grab your current read.
Let the book fall open to a random page.
Share with us two (2) “teaser” sentences from that page, somewhere between lines 7 and 12.
You also need to share the title of the book that you’re getting your “teaser” from … that way people can have some great book recommendations if they like the teaser you’ve given!
Please avoid spoilers!





It was a cool, wet day in late May when Obie Poole
passed away. He was resting in his bed when his heart, as though it had waited for that one moment from the day he'd been born, stopped beating in his chest.

(from Madewell Brown by Rick Collignon, p54)

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