He Forgot to Say Goodbye (review)
Buy Issue for $25 at JHUP- He Forgot to Say Goodbye
High school seniors Ramiro Lopez and Jacob Upthegrove approach adulthood wrestling with unsatisfactory lives entirely defined by the fathers who left them. Mexican-American Ram works at a burger joint, gets good grades, saves money for college, and tries to understand his self-destructive younger brother. Worlds away, rich Anglo Jake lives on the Oh-Wow West Side of El Paso with his mother and philandering stepfather, attends anger-management therapy, and tries to right all that is wrong with the world by finding an immigration lawyer for the husband of his family's maid. The two young men meet outside their neighboring schools and become cautious friends, united by common feelings of loneliness, abandonment, [End Page 491] and anger. Most absorbing are not the constant reminders about missing fathers but rather the influential presence of the remaining women: Ram and his mother cling to each other after his brother fatally overdoses on drugs; Jake purposely antagonizes a mother who never cared enough for him; feisty feminist Alejandra provides support and perspective as both best friend to Ram and new love interest for Jake. Though agenda-driven messages and unnatural speech occasionally intrude on the story, the voices are realistic, from the considerable sprinkling of swearing to the commentary on the messed-up state of the world that's par for the course for smart but not yet mature teens. Action generally takes a backseat to reflection as the disillusioned young men take turns journaling their individual identity crises in first-person narration that strongly echoes Holden Caulfield; with more than one nod to Catcher in the Rye, this should appeal to readers who like their heroes to have hit rock bottom and come up a little bit more optimistic about their futures.
