THE SONS OF EL REY, intergenerational fathers, sons, and expectations with added gayness

THE SONS OF EL REY
ALEX ESPINOZA
Simon & Schuster
$28.99 hardcover, available now

Rating: 4.5* of five

The Publisher Says: From the American Book Award–winning author comes a multi-generational epic spanning 1960s Mexico City to contemporary Los Angeles, following a family of Luchadores as they contend with forbidden love and family secrets.

Ernesto and Elena Vega arrive in Mexico City where Ernesto works on a construction site until he is discovered by a local lucha libre trainer. At a time when luchadores—Mexican wrestlers donning flamboyant masks and capes—were treated as daredevils or rockstars, Ernesto finds fame as El Rey Coyote, rapidly gaining name recognition across Mexico.

Years later, in East Los Angeles Freddy Vega is struggling to save his father’s gym while Freddy’s own son Julian is searching for professional and romantic fulfillment as a Mexican American gay man refusing to be defined by stereotypes. The once larger-than-life Ernesto Vega is now dying, leading Freddy and Julian to find their own passions and discover what really happened back in Mexico.

Told from alternating perspectives, Ernesto takes you from the ranches of Michoacán to the makeshift colonias and crowded sports arenas of Mexico City. Freddy describes life in the suburban streets of 1980s Los Angeles and the community their family built as Julian descends deep into the culture of hook-up apps, lucha burlesque shows, and the dark underbelly of West Hollywood, The Sons of El Rey is an intimate portrait of a family wading against time and legacy, yet always choosing the fight.

I RECEIVED A DRC FROM THE PUBLISHER VIA NETGALLEY. THANK YOU.

My Review: The very idea of luchadores is Exotic to me, in the settler-colonial sense. I am as far from a wrestling fan that it is possible for someone to be. So, well, what's the appeal of this story to someone like me?

The very idea of the immigrant journey.

Immigrants are the lifeblood of the US on economic and cultural levels. The country wouldn't exist without us. (The Native Americans would doubtless see this as a plus.) The present cultural conversation around immigrants and their role across the world demands that we see the actual, real humans in these roles not abstractions of Otherness. The best way I know to do that is to learn the stories that immigrants tell us. Author Espinoza, infant immigrant to the US, knows the life he's writing about as a grown queer man.

What he does in this novel is to open the world of men whose lives are lived in the weighty spotlight of expectations. The ones they have, the ones their families—born, chosen, made—have, the ones US culture imposes. Exploring that interplay is fertile ground for stories, for secrets, for endless surprises...mostly the surprise, evergreen, of how very much of a miracle it is that there are any adult survivors of childhood. Fathers aren't usually much good at parenting because, well, where would most men learn it? Immigrant fathers don't even have the acquisition of culture to pass down, so these luchadores are actually very lucky in that they have this familial tie to their fathers. Of course, the links in that chain are all shaped very differently. A gay son isn't going to follow his father into the family trade when it's so explicitly homophobic, is he. And, to be honoest, that surprises me: Lucha libre is vivid, male-centered, and as close to drag as it's possible to be without falsies and heels being involved. (Plenty of wigs, though.) It veers at the last second into that other drag-adjacent cosplay genre, the superhero/supervillain dichotomy.

The women in the story are peripheral, and that is (I believe) by design. If it's going to bother you not to read yet another take on immigrant mother pluckily overcomes cultural and patriarchal barriers story, there's shelves of books that will stroke your needy story parts. The existential stakes aren't, for once, set by the women but by and for men. The women aren't consulted or considered. How very unexaminedly patriarchal. You've been warned.

For #PrideMonth, it's a dads-and-lads custom-made celebration of the bond we either fail to form or miss feeling; it's a clear-eyed look at the gay-son-defies-tradition tale so popular in our group; and a call to acceptance of nonwhite men in our wider community. It's also, in Author Espinoza's award-winning tradition, a delight to read on the language level. Don't expect a deep dive into the world, and language, of the luchadores...our focus is definitely on the people, the family they form and change. They live in the intense, hyperreal fakeness of lucha libre, but they spend little time examining it. As you do. That means as a consequence that the reader doesn't examine it, either. Go in to the read knowing what's on offer and avoid disappointment, says me.

The Mexican backstory is, in my view, scanty. It's not meant to be a knock...it's not the story solely of El Rey Coyote...but it does seem to me that another chapter in Michoacán would've been very welcome. The ending is rushed, and contains a plot thread that's...obscure...for the vast majority of the book. That missing half-star is down to my sense that it was pretty much just sprung on me, though I hasten to say that it did not feel as though it was parachuted in from above. It just wasn't given any oxygen until the ending. Again, best to know now, not come up suddenly upon the end and think, "...wait...".

Not my perfect read, but one I enjoyed very much indeed. A terrific #PrideMonth read.