Still Water Saints: A Novel (2007)

www.dailycamera.com/news/2007/apr/13/journey-to-agua-mansa/

"Journey to Agua Mansa"
Espinoza creates rich, vivid world in debut novel

By Jenny Shank
For the Camera
Friday, April 13, 2007

In his debut novel, "Still Water Saints," Alex Espinoza conjures up an entire town of people, the residents of the fictional Agua Mansa, and brings each of them to vivid life. Although the town is located in Southern California, its tales of hardscrabble existence in a predominantly Mexican-American community could originate in any gritty urban fringe of the Southwest.

The book cycles around Perla, the elderly proprietor of the Botnica Oshn, a store selling all manner of aids for psychic and spiritual ailments, such as "Quit Gossiping" candles, "Adam and Eve" love oil and "Repel Evil" bath salts. The goods offered for sale in botnicas, stores that are common in Latino areas in the U.S., blend elements of Catholicism, new age beliefs and Santeria. Perla serves as a counselor, doctor, and surrogate grandmother to her customers. In other words, Espinoza has chosen a wonderfully rich subject for his novel, and he proves a capable Scheherezade.

"Still Water Saints" alternates third-person chapters from Perla's perspective with first-person chapters from the perspectives of different customers. The book coheres as a novel, but Espinoza brings the skills of a short-story writer to bear through precise language that conveys unique voices for the many narrators yet still remains consistent enough that the many shifts don't feel disorienting.

Espinoza has a knack for making each character come to life within the space of a few sentences. A young boy describes how he spends a lonesome summer: "There was an empty field that wasn't too far from my house. I would go there almost every afternoon to ride my bike, smashing beetles with my tires, pretending I was racing in a tournament."

The tales in "Still Water Saints" start out innocently enough with Rosa, an overweight teenager looking to drop a few pounds with the help of some of Perla's tea. Rosa starts to fall for an ex-con she meets at the grocery store where she works, and the twists her story takes are mirrored in the dark turn of the novel as a whole.

Perla, a lonely widow who was never able to have children, becomes obsessed with a troubled young man named Rodrigo who makes his way into the store one day. A transsexual trying to save money for a sex-change operation comes to Perla for advice about how to get her recently deceased friend into heaven. A Latina named Nancy whose father's health is worsening must decide if she's ready to forgive him for his racist treatment of her black husband. To fund their drug habit, a couple of hoodlums steal from an electronics store where one of them works.

While the lives of Perla's customers change, the neighborhood changes too — the dollar store next door to the botnica in the strip mall closes and a body piercing and tattoo shop called "Stigmata" moves in. A rock thrown through the botnica's window seems to mark an ominous turn for the neighborhood, but then Espinoza includes a chapter from the perspective of the rock thrower, and the situation doesn't seem so grim after all.

Espinoza blends the dark with the light in careful balance: people die, others are born, some relationships founder, while others form. Some of the parents he portrays are attentive, others are neglectful, but most of Espinoza's characters are believably complex, showing one side to their families and another to the world.

Espinoza's details effectively bring the world of his characters to life, such as the rosary Perla sells with "beads that shine like wet pomegranate seeds"; one character's childhood memory of sitting in the family Chrysler during a car wash; or this description of sweethearts spending a day together: "We walked around the flea market imitating the sound Steve Austin's bionic legs made whenever he ran fast or jumped high."

The painstaking care Espinoza has taken in crafting his debut novel is evident. Economical with its words, yet teeming with life, "Still Water Saints" should mark the beginning of a distinguished career. ( )