Along These Highways by Rene S. Perez II (review)

Along These Highways is an outstanding debut for Rene S. Perez II. The author’s short stories reveal often overlooked places and histories of South Texas and the people who call it home. Perez imparts his insight as a native South Texan, writing about men and women who understand their identities through their communities: Greenton, a small rural town; Corpus Christi, a city clutched against the coast; Pawelekville, an obscure town off a Texas highway; and Austin. The author’s focus on racial and class difference is carried thematically throughout the collection.

Perez opens his collection with “One Last Drive North,” a story about an aging mortician named Alfredo, who makes his last trip out of his small town named Greenton to pick up the body of an old friend who has just passed away. Alfredo’s failing eyesight has left him unable to drive at night and, thus, unable to make the long drives to pick up the bodies of his former community members. Picking up the body of Efrain Ochoa will be Alfredo’s final journey to bring home a friend. Alfredo, as the town’s only mortician, “has come to prepare for burial the bodies of every single person who has died in Greenton, or whose wish it was to be buried there” (7). Perez uses death as a way to reconnect the people of Greenton long after they have moved away from the town.

While Perez portrays a sense of unity in his fictional Greenton community, he also remarks on the disparaging difference between South Texans through race and class in his story “AGROSOMAS.” The story begins with Anthony Salinas and his father attending a banquet to award a scholarship created in honor of the memory of Anthony’s grandfather, Alvaro Garza. The nine-hundred-dollar scholarship is paid for and founded by Alvaro’s lifetime employer, the Chudleys, longtime ranch owners turned oil tycoons. Anthony and his father reflect on the life Alvaro lived at the Chudley ranch: “He went to school here and worked here his whole life because it was, as he called it, his ranch—our ranch” (30). Anthony remembers his grandfather as one of the many rural Mexican American workers who maintained their physical and emotional connection to the land they worked and lived on. However, Anthony’s father reminds him that ownership does not necessarily belong to those who work the land: “We just break our backs so they can make more money” (30). One of Perez’s strongest suits is that he does not ignore or gloss over the history of labor exploitation in rural South Texas.

The author’s shortcoming is his portrayal of young women. They are less rounded characters and fall flat in comparison to his male characters, although Perez does well in his portrayal of aging mothers in “Lost Days” and “Letting Go a Dream.”

Along These Highways is an honest and remarkable representation of what it means to live and work in and remember South Texas. Perez’s short stories connect the people and places that create the unique history of the region. His attention to detail in regional vernacular, his portrayal of rural life, and his mapping of forgotten Texas towns make this an excellent collection.