Wild Steps of Heaven
by Victor Villasenor
List Price:
Our Price: $8.52
You Save: $6.48 (43%)
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Buy Used: from $0.79 (click here)
Category: Book
See more book details and other editions
Book Summary Information
Author: Victor VillasenorEdition: Paperback
Audio: English (Unknown); English (Original Language); English (Published)
Published: 1997-02-10
ISBN: 0385315694
Number of pages: 304
Publisher: Delta
Book Reviews of Wild Steps of Heaven
Book Review: Epic Tale of Family Loyalty, Love, and Making of Heroes
Summary: 5 Stars
In times of hardship heroes are needed and none moreso than in Mexico as revolution rages. The Villasenor family patriarch, an exiled red-haired Spaniard, has married an Indian woman. The first ten years of the marriage are a time of great love and passion, and the children born first are fair and favor Don Juan Villasenor. Later children are dark like their mother. One of the dark ones, Jose, from age 12 must live in the barn because he defied his father and gentled a stallion to rescue his baby brother holding onto the leg rather than shoot the horse. In his exile and solitude a hero begins his training with Grandfather Don Pio Castro who knows Jose understands the power of love and gentleness. This will be the son who defends la familia during the revolution from the soldiers who time and again attach the village. The colonel commanding the troops more particularly desires Jose's true love Mariposa and destroys her. Ultimately, the younger brother Juan (author Villasenor's father) begins to show heroic tendencies himself and will be the one to defend his mother and the remaining family against the colonel. Villasenor moves the tale along with a powerful, songlike cadence. Notable characters are the giant cousins, Basilio and Agustin, who strip naked and race the lightning and then Halley's comet on January 17, 1910, a night of magic and love, the day before el colonel begins shooting up the home village, el paraiso de Los Altos de Jalisco. Each chapter begins with epigrams featuring "Great Father Sun" that provide a sense of power from above, as in "the heavens smile . . . as all around him the gods and serpents did battle." When the final epigram tells us "and out of these children of the earth and of the stars would now come a glorious new gente in all their wonder and fire," we realize that while we have been traveling through an exciting story with more twists and turns than fiction, we also have been participating in something approximating a creation myth. Highly recommended is Villasenor's first tale of the family Villasenor, Rain of Gold.
Authors Books
Book Subjects
- Arts & Photography
- Biographies & Memoirs
- Business & Investing
- Children's Books
- Comics & Graphic Novels
- Computers & Internet
- Cooking, Food & Wine
- Entertainment
- Gay & Lesbian
- Health, Mind & Body
- History
- Home & Garden
- Horror
- Law
- Literature & Fiction
- Mystery & Thrillers
- Nonfiction
- Outdoors & Nature
- Parenting & Families
- Professional & Technical
- Reference
- Religion & Spirituality
- Romance
- Science
- Science Fiction & Fantasy
- Sports
- Teens
- Travel
Most talked about in Authors Books
Bloomsbury Recalledby Quentin Bell
Columbia University Press; Published: 1997-01-15; Paperback; Book
Best price: $19.40
Price in other shops:
William Tyndale: A Biographyby David Daniell
Yale University Press; Published: 1994-11-30; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $62.92
Neither Saints Nor Sinners: Writing the Lives of Women in Spanish Americaby Kathleen Ann Myers
Oxford University Press, USA; Published: 2003-08-07; Paperback; Book
Best price: $14.00
Price in other shops:
Storm of Steel (Penguin Classics)by Ernst Jünger
Penguin Classics; Published: 2004-05-04; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.50
Price in other shops:
Surprised by Joy: The Shape of My Early Lifeby C.S. Lewis
Houghton Mifflin Harcourt; Published: 1995-11-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $10.22
Price in other shops:
Roughing It (The Penguin American Library)by Mark Twain
Penguin Classics; Published: 1981-12-17; Paperback; Book
Best price: $8.65
Price in other shops:
Life Is So Good: One Man's Extraordinary Journey through the 20th Century and How he Learned to Read at Age 98by George Dawson, Richard Glaubman
Penguin (Non-Classics); Published: 2001-06-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $6.55
Price in other shops:
Shakespeare: The World as Stage (Eminent Lives)by Bill Bryson
Harper Perennial; Published: 2008-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.00
Price in other shops:
The Professor and the Madman CDby Simon Winchester
HarperAudio; Published: 2005-10-04; Audio CD; Book
Best price: $8.47
Price in other shops:
Alexander Hamilton: A Lifeby Willard Sterne Randall
Harper; Published: 2003-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $5.86
Price in other shops:
Similar books summaries and other product reviews
Reading and Writing Short Arguments (Powered by Catalyst 2.0)by William Vesterman
McGraw-Hill; Published: 2005-07-20; Paperback; Book
Best price: $45.99
Lluvia de Oroby Victor Villasenor
Delta; Published: 1996-02-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $11.00
Price in other shops:
Crazy Loco Love: A Memoirby Victor Villasenor
Atria Books/Beyond Words; Published: 2010-11-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.27
Price in other shops:
Crazy Loco Love: A Memoirby Victor Villasenor
Atria Books/Beyond Words; Published: 2010-11-09; Paperback; Book
Best price: $1.40
Price in other shops:
Macho!by Victor Villasenor
Delta; Published: 1997-02-10; Paperback; Book
Best price: $35.00
Walking Stars: Stories of Magic and Powerby Victor Villasenor
Delta; Published: 1998-05-11; Paperback; Book
Best price: $4.49
Price in other shops:
Burro Genius: A Memoirby Victor Villasenor
Harper Perennial; Published: 2005-09-20; Paperback; Book
Best price: $3.53
Price in other shops:
Beyond Rain of Goldby Victor Villasenor
Hay House; Published: 2011-04-01; Hardcover; Book
Best price: $17.00
Price in other shops:
Thirteen Senses : A Memoirby Victor Villasenor
Published: 2002-09-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $5.54
Price in other shops:
Rain of Goldby Víctor E. Villaseñor
Delta; Published: 1992-10-01; Paperback; Book
Best price: $9.44
Price in other shops: