Once More to the River: Family Snapshots of Growing Up, Getting Out and Going Back

"Like the howl of an accordion-half sorrow and half joy, wondrous and exquisite-these stories squeezed my heart."

-Sandra Cisneros, author of The House on Mango Street

Family is everything. In ONCE MORE TO THE RIVER, award-winning writer Erasmo Guerra gathers a remarkable collection of true stories about small-town life along the U.S.-Mexico border. Guerra recounts family stories and he writes about the unthinkable loss his family suffered when his teenage sister, a high school cheerleader with big dreams, was murdered the summer she graduated.Told with lyrical prose and a reporter's ear for the Tex-Mex language of the border region, these stories capture the voices and poetry of South Texas. By turns powerful and tender, humorous and haunting, this collection is a deeply personal chronicle of tragedy and the triumph of family survival.