Oscar Lewis (1) (1914–1970)

This is the heartbreaking story of a family from DF, who live near the Lowest level of poverty in the nation's capital. The Sanchez family, father Jesus, sons Roberto and Manuel, and daughters Consuelo and Marta, tell their stories via tape recorder to anthropologist Oscar Lewis. For those who live in a bubble and cannot relate to this kind of reality check, they may become depressed and put a bad review, as I saw at least one Goodreads reviewer do. Mexican society is extremely patriarchal, and more so among the poor. Machistas destroy families by treating their domestic partners cruelly, having multiple families, giving no thought to impregnating multiple women multiple times and then leaving these children to neglect and starvation. Those children naturally grow up and do the same thing; they never have a chance to get educated and break the cycle. I would estimate that 80% of the present globe's population is from this background, with all the cost in wasted lives, especially for the women, that this implies.… (more)

I just finished the prequel- "The Children of Sanchez". This, much shorter, work revisits the same family a few years on as three of the siblings (father and youngest daughter Marta are absent) reconvene as Aunt Guadeloupe dies, has a wake and is buried.
We recognize the personalities from Book 1- self-centred trader Manuel; bad boy Roberto, who still seems to have more of a heart than his brother- and aspirational Consuelo, a secretary who is raising Manuel's neglected offspring.
I felt the grinding poverty here, much more than in the prequel. There, the family had ups and downs; Aunt Guadeloupe, however, was an impoverished woman with an alcohol habit, living in a slum. The utter destitution, and lack of support is constant- if you cant scrape together the undertaker's fees, the body sits and putrefies; the church is on the make...As the book draws to a close, Manuel is calculating how to evict the Aunt's wastrel lover, while Consuelo advocates mercy....… (more)

This is an anthropolgical study of an extended working class Mexican family in the 1950s. But if that sounds dull, I just want to say that it reads of a pretty gripping family saga; and as a work of psychology.
Father Sanchez has made something of himself through hard graft at the restaurant he works in, and a bit of enterprise. He seems exceptionally duty bound to his numerous children and grandchildren, forever helping them financially. And yet he is a flawed man- a womanizer, violent, harsh...
Lewis interviews each of his four children (by deceased first wife) three times. They take him through their lives, the events, the relationships...
Anthropologically, this introduces us to a very alien world. The machismo (wives expect to be beaten, kept short of funds); the lack of stability as marriage is a rare thing and people indulge in a succession of short lived affairs; the poverty; the corrupt police; the violence, drunkenness; the religion but, too, a bit of witchcraft... And what is it LIKE sharing one room with eighteen others- the ones you dislike,the ones with unsavory habits. the lack of privacy? The interviewees share their thoughts...

And then the story- one with no convenient tied-up ends as people lurch from one disaster to another. Infidelity, jail breaks, lottery wins..

But for me, it was predominantly a psychological masterpiece. Here we have four characters who know much of each others' lives. Yet the different slant on an event when relayed fronm two perspectives! Sanchez' disillusionment with the failures his children have turned out is set aside the traumatized Roberto- rejected, unloved, beaten as a child...and who (for perhaps that very reason) goes rather off the rails...

An absolute tour de force.… (more)