The Garcia Boy
This book tells the story of a brilliant young writer whose life was cut short by tragedy. In 2011, the award-winning essayist Rafael Torch died from a rare form of cancer at age 36, just as his career was beginning to take off. Thanks to the work of students in the creative-writing program at DePaul University, his gripping memoir is now published for the first time.
The son of an undocumented Mexican immigrant, Torch struggled with addiction before becoming a teacher at a high school in a largely Latino community on Chicago’s Lower West Side. His unflinching memoir focuses on the murder of a star student at that school—a symbol of the overwhelming challenges sons and daughters of immigrants face as they attempt to find a place in the larger society. What does it mean to be an American? And how does a person gain (or fail to gain) that identity? Although Rafael Torch wrote The Garcia Boy 15 years ago, the questions he poses are more important than ever.
This book tells the story of a brilliant young writer whose life was cut short by tragedy. In 2011, the award-winning essayist Rafael Torch died from a rare form of cancer at age 36, just as his career was beginning to take off. Thanks to the work of students in the creative-writing program at DePaul University, his gripping memoir is now published for the first time.
The son of an undocumented Mexican immigrant, Torch struggled with addiction before becoming a teacher at a high school in a largely Latino community on Chicago’s Lower West Side. His unflinching memoir focuses on the murder of a star student at that school—a symbol of the overwhelming challenges sons and daughters of immigrants face as they attempt to find a place in the larger society. What does it mean to be an American? And how does a person gain (or fail to gain) that identity? Although Rafael Torch wrote The Garcia Boy 15 years ago, the questions he poses are more important than ever.
This book tells the story of a brilliant young writer whose life was cut short by tragedy. In 2011, the award-winning essayist Rafael Torch died from a rare form of cancer at age 36, just as his career was beginning to take off. Thanks to the work of students in the creative-writing program at DePaul University, his gripping memoir is now published for the first time.
The son of an undocumented Mexican immigrant, Torch struggled with addiction before becoming a teacher at a high school in a largely Latino community on Chicago’s Lower West Side. His unflinching memoir focuses on the murder of a star student at that school—a symbol of the overwhelming challenges sons and daughters of immigrants face as they attempt to find a place in the larger society. What does it mean to be an American? And how does a person gain (or fail to gain) that identity? Although Rafael Torch wrote The Garcia Boy 15 years ago, the questions he poses are more important than ever.
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