The Stone World

January 1, 2022
The beauty and hardship of post-World War II Mexico are brought to life through the eyes of a young child in this semiautobiographical debut novel. Peter Vogelsang, known by the nickname Pira, is a 61/2-year-old boy living in a small Mexican town in the summer of 1947, being raised by his American mother, Martha, his German stepfather, Bruno, and their live-in maid, Zita. Pira processes the world in the curious, syntactically simple language of a bilingual child. He plays army men on an anthill and overhears adults talking of communist revolution. He learns of the death of Manolete, the famous bullfighter. Meanwhile, Bruno dreams of bringing his family back to his native Germany, but Pira wants to stay in Mexico with his friends Ar�n and Chris. "Isn't it good," Bruno said, "that two people can have opposite wishes and still love each other?" Pira often retreats to the zapote tree in the garden or to the stone patio with one ear pressed to the ground: "Sounds on the air side were crisp and clear, and many. On the stone side there were few sounds, and they were muffled and dark."Although Pira is a bright, emotional child--and an aspiring poet--whose voice occasionally flirts with lyricism or profundity, he is absent any outsized quirks or precociousness. He asks questions about concepts like evil, honesty, and prayer, and the adults in his life answer him attentively, without a trace of irony. The only clues that this book is geared toward adult readers are the rare descriptions of curse words, violence, or human anatomy, all interpreted through Pira's na�vet�. The unpretentiousness of the story carries a certain magic, but its larger meaning hinges on its connection to Agee's 1981 memoir, Twelve Years: An American Boyhood in East Germany. An earnest and mystical evocation of childhood memory.

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January 10, 2022
Translator and memoirist Agee (In the House of My Fear) delivers a tender and potent saga of an American boy who grows up in mid-20th-century Mexico. Peter Vogelsang is raised by his musician mother, Martha, and stepfather, Bruno, a German writer. He spends his days exploring his pastoral neighborhood, playing war with his best friend Aron, and hanging out with the family’s housekeeper, Zita, who regales him with stories of Mexican folklore and the power of religion. As Bruno longs to return to Germany with his family despite it being left “in ruins” by the war, and Zita’s beau’s affinity for labor activism lands him in jail, Peter picks up difficult lessons about family and love. Larger events threaten his future in Mexico, though, as unionized railroad workers begin striking, a revolution simmers, and a tempting offer to relocate abroad materializes. Agee’s lyrical prose glides the reader through defining moments of love, friendship, and maturity as Peter comes to cherish his foreign cultural surroundings, such as when he embraces an improvisational performance of “Las Mañanitas” on pedal steel that “turned into a drone that rose and fell like long slow waves.” The author does a fine job presenting an era of unrest, both for a boy and for a country.

January 1, 2022
Six-year-old Pira (Peter) is navigating the wonders and perils of childhood, mostly oblivious to the tumultuous backdrop in a late 1940s Mexican town. The story is loosely based on Agee's own childhood, and he dexterously establishes the curious, imaginative, and innocent narrative voice of his young narrator. Pira spends his days learning to read, writing poems, and generally seeking knowledge about the greater world yet remains an outsider, a gringo, blissfully unaware of the larger political machinations at work around him. Agee's languid, poetic prose masterfully builds Pira's seemingly bucolic world while subtly hinting at the inevitable loss of innocence. He brilliantly plays with language, employing multiple meanings to indicate the inherent dichotomy of childhood and experience ("parties" suggest both the birthday and the political varieties). Dictatorships crush labor unions, devastatingly mirroring the burning of ants when Pira and his friends discover magnifying glasses. Agee agilely keeps the political strife on the periphery but hints at the labor conflicts and the ideological foment that will soon seed the Cold War divide. A portrait of the artist as a young child.

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