Accordion Eulogies
by Noé Álvarez
GENRE: Nonfiction, History, Memoir, Music
Growing up in Yakima, Washington, Noé Álvarez never knew his grandfather. Stories swirled around this mythologized, larger-than-life figure: That he had abandoned his family, and had possibly done something awful that put a curse on his descendants. About his grandfather, young Noé was sure of only one thing: That he had played the accordion. Now an adult, reckoning with the legacy of silence surrounding his family’s migration from Mexico, Álvarez resolves both to take up the instrument and to journey into Mexico to discover the grandfather he never knew.
Álvarez travels across the US with his accordion, meeting makers and players in cities that range from San Antonio to Boston. He uncovers the story of an instrument that’s been central to classic American genres, but also played a critical role in indigenous Mexican history. Like the accordion itself, Álvarez feels trapped between his roots in Mexico and the U.S. As he tries to make sense of his place in the world—as a father, a son, a musician—he gets closer to uncovering the mystery of his origins.
Noé Álvarez was born to Mexican immigrant parents and raised working-class in Yakima, Washington. He holds degrees in philosophy and creative writing from Whitman College and Emerson College, respectively. He studied conflict analysis, peacemaking, and conflict resolution at American University and in Northern Ireland, received a fellowship at Princeton University’s Woodrow Wilson School, and researched U.S. drug policy, military aid, and human rights issues in Colombia’s Putumayo jungles. He lives in Boston, where, until recently, he worked as a security officer at one of the nation’s oldest libraries, the Boston Athenæum. - Author's website
Publisher's Weekly
In this poignant blend of personal and cultural history, Álvarez (Spirit Run) traces the roots of the accordion in an attempt to understand his estranged grandfather. Growing up in Yakima, Wash., all Álvarez knew for sure about his grandfather was that he brought his family to the United States from Mexico, abandoned them when Álvarez’s father was a child, and played the accordion. As an adult, Álvarez also learned to play the instrument, and set out across the U.S. to speak with accordion players and manufacturers in order to “retrace his [grandfather’s] steps and revive the spirit of the accordion in our family.” In Boston, New Orleans, and other cities, Álvarez learned of the accordion’s mechanical quirks and ties to oppressed communities worldwide, including Black Creoles and the Indigenous peoples of Mexico. His investigation led him back to his ancestral corner of Mexico, where he reconnected with his ailing grandfather in a meeting that ultimately left him cold. “I didn’t gain that much form my short encounter with my grandfather,” Álvarez writes. “But I am thankful for the person I grew into during my crazy pursuit of this idea of a grandfather.” With its rigorous curiosity and emotional vulnerability, Álvarez’s account makes a strong case that the journey is more important than the destination. (May)
Kirkus
A U.S.–born author of Mexican heritage uses the music and history of the accordion to help him investigate his ancestry.
In this poetic follow-up to Spirit Run, Álvarez, who grew up in Yakima, Washington, turns to the music of his people to uncover family secrets, particularly those pertaining to his grandfather, Eulogio, a traveling accordionist who left his family in Mexico and may have committed a wrong that put a curse on the family. For Álvarez’s father, the pain of this separation lingers, and the author has “spent my life fruitlessly trying to close his hurt for him.” The author chronicles his travels to Mexico, where Eulogio, now in his 90s, still lives, to learn about his world by studying the accordion, “invok[ing] its ancient gestures in order to peel back the layers of myself.” This book is a combination of that journey, a history of the accordion, and a primer on the types of music for which it is used, including corrido music, “a genre of accordion music that speaks of immigrant tragedies in the hopes that expressing pain might soften it.” Álvarez also traveled to Louisiana, Texas, and the U.K. to discover the accordion’s roots and interview musicians, among them “zydeco legend” Jeffery Broussard; Ed Poullard, “one of the last remaining Black Creole accordion makers”; and British musician Will Pound, who talks animatedly about the “color in his music” and for whom music has had therapeutic meaning since two significant childhood surgeries. The tone is inconsistent—lyrical in chapters about Álvarez’s family, more reportorial when recounting his travels and interviews—but the author makes his quest genuinely moving and shows how, for many marginalized communities, “accordion playing is an act of resistance.”
A heartfelt memoir that serves as “a reminder of what it takes to build love and community for oneself and one’s family.” (Kirkus Reviews, Feb. 24, 2024)
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Booklist
In a follow-up to his award-winning debut memoir, Spirit Run (2020), Álvarez embarks on another journey of self-discovery. This time, he seeks to meet his paternal grandfather, who abandoned his family and set off a ripple effect of intergenerational trauma. The son of working-class Mexican immigrants and soon-to-be father takes up the accordion (like his abuelo) and in doing so chronicles the impact of the instrument on “ethnic groups who suffered isolation and separation but still persevered” and serves as a conduit for “corridos,” or narrative poetic ballads. Álvarez’s travels take him to Louisiana, Ireland, and Mexico, but his journey becomes perilous when he travels into dangerous regions of Mexico, surviving a car accident and navigating conflict zones. A lasting theme of the book is that amid life’s disappointments, music offers a healing balm, as do the people who show unflinching generosity. Once again, this gifted writer proves to be an essential contemporary voice and should be included on any multicultural and music-themed reading list. A QR code in the back leads readers to a playlist with performances by some of the accordionists featured. -- Brenda Barrera (March 1, 2024)
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