Synopses & Reviews
A daughter's quest to understand her charismatic and troubled father, an immigrant who crosses borders both real and illusory — between sanity and madness, science and spirituality, life and death
PEN America Literary Award Winner — "The kind of memoir that seems to redefine the genre." — Los Angeles Review of Books
Throughout Jean Guerrero's childhood, her father, Marco Antonio, was an erratic and elusive presence. A self-taught genius at fixing, creating, and conjuring things — and capable of transforming himself into a shaman, dreamcaster, or animal whisperer in his enchanted daughter's eyes — he gradually began to lose himself in his peculiar obsessions, careening wildly between reality and hallucination. In time, he fled his family and responsibilities — to Asia, Europe, and eventually back to Mexico. He succumbed to drug- and alcohol-fueled manias, while suffering the effects of what he said were CIA mind-control experiments. As soon as she was old enough, Jean set out after him. Now a journalist, she used the tools of her trade, hoping to find answers to the questions he left behind.
In this lyrical, haunting memoir, Jean Guerrero tries to locate the border between truth and fantasy as she searches for explanations for her father's behavior. Refusing to accept an alleged schizophrenia diagnosis at face value, she takes Marco Antonio's dark paranoia seriously and investigates all his wildest claims. She crisscrosses the Mexican-American border to unearth the stories of cousins and grandparents and discovers a chain of fabulists and mystics in her lineage, going back to her great-great-grandmother, a clairvoyant curandera who was paid to summon spirits from the afterlife. As she delves deeper and deeper into her family's shadowy past, Jean begins mirroring her father's self-destructive behavior. She risks death on her adventures, imperiling everything in her journey to redeem her father from the underworld of his delusions.
In the tradition of engrossing family memoirs like The Liar's Club and The Glass Castle, Crux is both a riveting adventure story and a profoundly original exploration of the human psyche, the mysteries of our most intimate relationships — and ourselves.
"[Guerrero] writes poetically about borders as a metaphor for the boundary of identity between father and daughter and the porous connective tissues that bind them." — The National Book Review
Review
"Crux is a triumphant memoir driven by the search for home and a father's elusive love. The twists and unexpected turns across borders are enchanting. A poignant, lovely debut."
— Alfredo Corchado, author of Midnight in Mexico
Review
"Expressive and affecting...deeply researched and tightly written...Crux, at its heart, is [Jean] Guerrero's love letter to her dad." — NPR
Review
"Luminous...heartfelt and mystically charged." — The Washington Post
About the Author
Jean Guerrero is a columnist at the Los Angeles Times. Previously, she was an investigative journalist covering the U.S.-Mexico border for KPBS, NPR and the PBS NewsHour affiliate in San Diego. She's the author of Hatemonger: Stephen Miller, Donald Trump, and the White Nationalist Agenda. Her work has also appeared in Wired, the New York Times, the Washington Post, the Wall Street Journal, Vanity Fair and more. She has won several prestigious reporting awards. She lives in Los Angeles and longboards every day.