The Holy Spirit of My Uncle's Cojones

Marcos McPeek Villatoro

If you don't know what "cojones" means, find a spanish/english dictionary and look it up! The playful title is a good indicator of this novel's tone and it doesn't disappoint. A coming of age novel that isn't burdened with sentimentality, The Holy Spirit of My Uncle's Cojones is a breezy, entertaining read about 16 year old Tony, depressed and in love, who, after a half-hearted suicide attempt, is sent to San Francisco to spend the summer with his pot-smoking, drug dealing, womanizing uncle Jack. The year is 1978. The two of them are soon embroiled in a drug deal gone bad and are on the run for their lives. Uncle Jack isn't exactly a good role model for the impressionable teen but he proves to be exactly the antidote to adolescence that Tony needs. Tony runs the gamut of first experiences that summer, from drugs to sex, but most importantly, under his uncle's influence, he bonds with his Latino culture (he is half Anglo, half Latino) and finds his inner strength.

When the book opens, Tony is a thirty-something adult, an adjunct professor of English who wrote his first novel while in his twenties and is struggling to find his second. He is in a rut, unhappy with both his life as a teacher and his two-timing girlfriend. When he gets a phone call from his mother informing him that Uncle Jack has died, he travels back to San Francisco to attend the funeral and there, reminisces the story of that fateful summer. Reliving those memories is exactly the catalyst the adult Tony needs to once again find that spark in his life, proving that Uncle Jack, even in death, is a force to be reckoned with.