The Water Museum: Stories by Luis Alberto Urrea is a collection of thirteen stories many of which have been previously published.

Dystopian futures, climate change, the immigrant experience and immigration politics, and cross-cultural experiences and relationships, are only a few of the themes explored in this creative collection of short stories.

Among my favorites in this collection is "Mr. Mendoza’s Paintbrush”, an amusing story blending humor and magical realism featuring a Mexican graffiti artist who paints the walls of the city with his cryptic messages. I also enjoyed the very first story “Mountains Without Number”, a moving story tinged with nostalgia featuring the inhabitants of a dying town and their memories of a time long past. Another favorite of mine in this collection is “Amapola” in which a white boy’s love affair with a Mexican girl puts him in a difficult position when the girl’s shady family enters the equation. “The Sous Chefs of Iogua” is an exceptional story set in rural Iowa that focuses on the changing demographic and delicate balance between the white residents and the Mexican immigrants. “Welcome to the Water Museum,” is set in the dystopian West and describes a school trip to a museum featuring water in all its past forms that inspires wonder and disbelief in the children being raised in an era where drought is an everyday reality and brings back memories for their adult chaperones.

Written in beautiful prose that transports you to the vividly described setting(s), I enjoyed all of the stories (in varying degrees, as in most collections) in this collection and loved the variety of themes and tones with which they have been written. Though a few of the characters appear in more than one story, the stories themselves vary in tone, theme and setting, and at no point in time do you lose interest. The author writes with deep insight and compassion and each of his stories, though deceptively simple conveys a strong message.

I had been wanting to read this author for a while now and I’m glad I picked this collection of stories to begin with. I look forward to reading Luis Alberto Urrea’s full-length novels. ( )

So excellent. Deserves a real review someday, maybe when I inevitably reread it. ( )

Super collection of short stories with great characters and settings. Must read more by this author. Library book. ( )

My favorite thing about Urrea is his ability to pull me into a world that is so distinct from mine. In[Into the Beautiful North, we start in a Mexican village threatened by drug traffickers and from there travel north to the U.S. In The Hummingbird's Daughter, we are transported to a Mexican village in the late 19th century where the illegitimate daughter of a wealthy rancher is believed to be a saint. Through dialogue and description, Urrea gives these worlds texture, but in The Water Museum, a collection of short stories, he is challenged to create multiple worlds in only a few pages, and he does. Each of these stories is told from a different perspectives. Several take us to the border town of Tres Camerones, but one is set in Iowa and another traces a road trip from Massachusetts to the west. One story, Carnations, is only two pages, yet still leaps off the page with texture and emotion. I have to admit that I prefer Urrea's novels, but I admire his ability to richly layer character and place in short stories as well. ( )

What a wonderful use of language to express emotions and setting this author has. Sympathetic characters all, trying but failing to push back against cultural boundaries. Loved the first story, Mountains without numbers. There is something so melancholy and realistic about this one. Scenes like this are probably happening in dying towns all over America, people stuck in their lives remembering when their lives seemed much fuller.

Loved to Mr Mendoza, with his use of humor and magical realism, once again what is, is no more.

The sous chefs, I adored, so cliched and amusing. Done so well.
Water Museum, an apocalyptic of a world running out of water. Almost seems not to fit, but it does because once again something that is gone is mourned. What is not remembered proves frightening.

Such a wonderful collection.

ARC from publisher. ( )