All That Rises
In Alma García’s novel All That Rises, two families living on the borderland between the US and Mexico share a tangled history.
Rose Marie leaves her husband and three children without explanation. On the same day but a few houses away, Inez knocks on her younger brother Jerry’s door after a fifteen-year absence. The events set off a chain of revelations. Both families adapt, implode, and transform.
Rose Marie’s husband tries to force his children into convenient silence and almost drowns at an amusement park. Jerry relives his childhood in the shadow of his older sister while his wife, Chavela, throws Inez an alcohol-free welcome home party. Caught in their own worlds, each person papers over old wounds, protects secrets, and longs for answers to questions they won’t ask. As Jerry, a history professor and an ex-border patrol agent, says: “the trouble with history…is that by the time you notice it repeating, it’s already happened.”
The characterizations are virtuosic in their display of psychological insight—just as at home in the minds of border agents, maids, and housewives. Tracing the fault lines that divide families and neighborhoods, the book sheds light on the way secrecy is passed down through generations.
The prose is confident, filled with evocative images and poetic parallels: “A handprint smears the window facing Mexico” in the room where Rose Marie’s children play video games and ignore their father; Jerry’s son Marcus finds all of his father’s siblings confessing to being the black sheep of the family. And the often heady story assumes a fierce pace, resulting in an intricate, organic, and moving book.
A serious novel, All That Rises eclipses social and political ideologies and examines how the contradictions of America’s southern border take root in its families.
Reviewed by
Willem Marx
Disclosure: This article is not an endorsement, but a review. The publisher of this book provided free copies of the book to have their book reviewed by a professional reviewer. No fee was paid by the publisher for this review. Foreword Reviews only recommends books that we love. Foreword Magazine, Inc. is disclosing this in accordance with the Federal Trade Commission’s 16 CFR, Part 255.
