Audacious Book Club: The Sons of El Rey by Alex Espinoza
Our August selection
My family went to Mexico City this spring because it was one of my mom’s bucket list destinations and we wanted to go with her while she could still enjoy all that the city has to offer. It was a dream of a vacation and Mexico City has quickly become one of my favorite places in the world. If you can get there, I highly recommend making the trip. It is a vibrant place, with so much to see and do. It has a rich history and a complex but important present. Anyway, one of the many things we did was see the lucha libre at Arena México. The stadium was raucous and people of all ages, from toddlers to grandparents, were there. The luchadors were consummate entertainers. We saw some verrrrry interesting wrestling moves. It was a wonderful adventure. Which brings us to this month’s selection, The Sons of El Rey.
The first chapter of Alex Espinoza’s second novel, The Five Acts of Diego León, begins with theatrical fanfare and the seeds of deception: it is 1911, and Diego watches his father, a full-blooded P’urhepcha Indian, leave for the Mexican revolution to oust President Portofirio Díaz. Diego’s mother begs her husband not to go, and Diego is afraid, but his father is committed; he puts on a hat, mounts his horse, and salutes them both as he leaves. Diego is afraid for his father and for the future, and for good reason. His father will return from the revolution a broken man; the breaking will send Diego to live with his grandparents, and they will convince him that he is white and destined for a different life: one in a rapidly-evolving Hollywood.
That life—in a movie industry that is built on secrets and in a country on the verge of the Great Depression—is dependent on both deception and constant reinvention, and it will eventually make Diego a star:
He knew nothing of the world then. He couldn’t understand why men like his father…were always forced to make these choices, always forced to make sacrifices that shaped destinies and altered lives forever…He could not imagine the many faces he would be called to wear…or the name by which he would be known and remembered. Not his birth name, his father’s name, but a false name. A name he would spend his life inventing, then becoming, only to lose himself in the riddles and the lies.
Espinoza’s third novel, The Sons of El Rey, borrows much Diego Leon’s theatricality and its tools of deception and showcases them on a new stage: lucha libre, the professional Mexican wrestling tradition which originated in the early 20th century and since then has evolved into a flamboyant and revered form of entertainment and a cultural touchstone featuring holds and high-flying maneuvers. The novel alternates between the perspectives of the motley members of the Vega family—a dying Ernesto Vega, who was once a prominent wrestler, known as a luchador, named El Rey Coyote, his son, Freddy, who attempts to follow in his father’s footsteps, Freddy’s gay son, Julian, who has one foot in academia and one in sex work, and Ernesto’s wife, Elena, who died years before but who still haunts Ernesto. The novel chronicles both the family’s successes and its struggles with honoring the culture of lucha libre, fealty to family, and a changing understanding of masculinity against a backdrop of an American culture full of both poison and possibilities.
The Sons of El Rey is both family saga and migration story, but it is also a story about what it means when people, especially men, must confront the gulf between who they are, who they pretend to be, and the stories they tell themselves to survive. This is a rich, moving, challenging novel, and I can’t wait to discuss this with you throughout the month of August. And if you ever get the chance to see the lucha libre in person, don’t pass it up; it is a magnificent spectacle to behold.
Sounds like a great read!