Jean Guerrero had a hard childhood. Her mother, a Puerto Rican physician working in San Diego, kicked her father out when Guerrero was 6- for understandable reasons. Her mother’s parents, who at times were the children’s caregivers, had some very odd ideas about child rearing. Her father, Marco Antonio Guerrero, was not around much, and when he was, he wasn’t much of a parent. Having mental illness but unwilling to acknowledge that, he self-medicated with, well, pretty much every drug that exists and huge amounts of alcohol.

The author majored in journalism and became a reporter for the Wall Street Journal, based in Mexico City. She used this situation to dig into her father’s culture and past. Turned out his family had a number of shamans in it, ending up in a sort of Castaneda territory. His parents and siblings, though, started a meat packing business that was making decent money with Marc Antonio running it. His half-sister edged him out, though, and that is when his problems really started, a downward spiral that included a tin foil hat along with the self-medicating. A voracious reader, he was a genius about repairing and creating things but couldn’t keep a job.

There is more than one crux in the story; the physical border between the US and Mexico, the border between mysticism and mental illness. The story wanders around in time and place, and I found this confusing in places. There is some repetition. There were sections that were so fascinating that I couldn’t put the book down, and other places I really wanted to skim or give up. Four stars out of five. ( )

Mental illness is a difficult disease with side effects that extend to family and loved ones. Jeanette Guerrero’s father was diagnosed with schizophrenia and his presence in and out of her life was enriching and traumatizing. To understand him and herself, to capture their history and where they come together, Jean Guerrero began a memoir of her family and the borders they cross every day. She called it Crux because it is about crossing borders, not just between the US and Mexico, but between reality and surreality, faith and reason, between ethnicity, language, and self. It is about that space between at the crossing, the crux. She says her father is not Mexican, not American, he is the hyphen.

She describes her childhood which was an interesting mix of privilege and struggle. Her mother is a doctor and was able to provide financial security, but their father’s absence and presence were both disorienting in different ways. She and her sister felt their father’s neglect and seeming indifference deeply. Their mother’s anger mixed with love was another hazard. Both rebelled in dangerous ways. Jean studied neuroscience before journalism and began her career working for The Wall Street Journal in Mexico. She wanted to work in Mexico in part to connect with her Mexican roots and maybe understand her father.

Jean Guerrero’s memoir is intriguing and beautiful written. There is a poetic urgency to her writing at times. I find myself enjoying a memoir that written by a lesser writer would make me roll my eyes. To be honest, I still rolled my eyes a little bit. She is very credulous of the supernatural, casting spells herself, believing in potions and spirits. She looks at how her father is perceived as insane in America and as a shaman in Mexico and wonders how much of mental illness is people with powers we don’t understand and perceive. Another crux deeply explored, between insanity and shamanism, the scientific and the mystic. Somehow she makes the mystical seem quite probable though when she writes, though she cites left-brain, right-brain theories long since debunked. Abd yet, that left-right crossing is another Crux.

I received an e-galley of Crux from the publisher through NetGalley

Crux at Penguin Random House
Jean Guerrero author site

★★★★
https://tonstantweaderreviews.wordpress.com/2018/08/05/9780399592393/ ( )