A Dream Called Home

Nonfiction | Autobiography / Memoir | Adult | Published in 2018

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Chapter Summaries & Analyses

Book 1, Chapters 1-5

Book 1, Chapters 6-9

Book 1, Chapters 10-14

Book 1, Chapters 15-18

Book 2, Chapters 19-23

Book 2, Chapters 24-28

Book 2, Chapters 29-33

Book 2, Chapters 34-38

Book 2, Chapter 39-Epilogue

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Book 2, Chapter 39-EpilogueChapter Summaries & Analyses

Book 2: “The Home I Carry”

Chapter 39 Summary

Reyna reflects on her complex relationship with her mother. She is surprised when her mother brings a plate of food to a local fruit vendor during a yard sale. Reyna learns that the vendor is undocumented, and that he has a wife and four children in Mexico. She realizes there are two sides to every immigration story: that of the adults who leave in search of work, and that of the children left behind.

Reyna’s mother makes ends meet by holding a booth at the swap and meet. This frustrates Reyna because she knows her mother has better options. Reyna agrees to help her mother with her own yard sale. The following week, her mother turns up at Reyna’s house with boxes of used clothes, kitchen supplies, and toys, as well as furniture she picked up off the street. Reyna realizes how much her mother enjoys interacting with people. However, their relationship sours when Reyna’s mother starts holding yard sales in front of the house three times a week. Reyna wants to put a stop to the sales, but she fears she will once again lose her mother. Tensions rise further when Reyna’s mother throws out Reyna’s compost scraps. Reyna cannot bring herself to apologize, even after her mother rummages through the trash to retrieve them. The next day, Reyna’s mother’s dog runs into traffic. As her mother smacks it on the head before showering it with kisses, Reyna realizes how complicated her mother’s love is.

Chapter 40 Summary

Mago moves in with Reyna after leaving Victor, her common-law husband. She stays in the garage three days a week, spending the rest of her time at her father and stepmother’s house. Mago finds a job as an insurance agent to support herself. However, she cannot work and care for her children, and so she sends them to live with Victor. The sisters grow close during this period. Mago tells Reyna about her marital problems, while Reyna remembers how social her sister was before she met Victor. Frustrated with their father’s strict rules, Mago moved out of the house to pursue the relationship. She soon learned that Victor was a lot like her father—quiet, introverted, and deeply traditional when it comes to gender relations. Mago stays with Reyna until a homeless man comes banging on the door. The incident shakes Mago’s children so much they refuse to come over. Mago goes back to her husband.

Chapter 41 Summary

During winter break, Reyna and Nathan take a trip with Cory to his hometown of Racine, Wisconsin. Reyna is stunned by the beauty of Racine and the size of Lake Michigan, which looks as large as an ocean. Cory’s mother, Carol, lives in a two-story Victorian house on a tree-lined street. Although Reyna is nervous about meeting Carol, she soon learns her fears are unfounded. Carol is warm and generous, showering Nathan with gifts. Reyna and Cory cut down their own Christmas tree as the snow falls around them. Reyna learns that Cory’s mother is a high school English teacher and that his stepfather, Andrew, is a retired Shakespeare professor, a bookstore owner, and a rare book collector. Carol and Andrew are delighted that Reyna is a writer. They listen attentively as she describes her work, offering to proofread anything she writes. Cory’s sister, Morgan, soon arrives from DC. The family plays Scrabble and other games before opening presents on Christmas day. The following day, Reyna visits Cory’s maternal grandmother at her lakefront house. Reyna and Cory enjoy a snowmobile ride, sledding, and building a snowman. Reyna makes chili rellenos and dreams of living in a Victorian house by the lake, near Cory’s family.

Chapter 42 Summary

Reyna publishes her first novel, Across a Hundred Mountains. The book receives positive reviews from Publishers Weekly, People, and the El Paso Times. The following year, the novel receives an American Book Award. Reyna’s family and friends attend her publication party at Skylight Books in Los Feliz. As she holds her book in her hand, Reyna suddenly realizes that she built a home she could carry. Her publisher schedules a national book tour, which takes Reyna across the country. Particularly memorable is Reyna’s reading at UCSC, where Micah proudly tells her Across a Hundred Mountains is the Freshman Read for her former college. Micah invites Reyna to speak on campus in 2006. Reyna brings her mother along to help care for Nathan, in addition to inviting Betty and Omar. Reyna is nervous to speak in front of hundreds of students, but the presentation goes well. On the way back to the hotel, Reyna’s mother takes an interest in her writing for the first time. Back in LA, Cory proposes to Reyna by placing an engagement ring in her Scrabble tile bag. She accepts his proposal, and the two continue their game.

Epilogue Summary

The Epilogue focuses on the years following the publication of Reyna’s book. Reyna and Cory learn she is pregnant months before their wedding. She walks down the aisle with her baby bump showing under her dress. Reyna’s dreams of being a published author have come true, yet she continues to hone her craft. She juggles wedding planning with her pursuit of a Master of Fine Arts degree in creative writing. Four weeks before giving birth, she receives her second university diploma with her father in the audience.

Reyna’s daughter Eva Alana is born in 2008. She hopes Eva will grow to be an independent woman and wonders if her daughter would survive what she survived as a child. Reyna also wonders if she would have the courage to leave her children the way her parents did.

In 2010, Reyna’s father is diagnosed with liver cancer. Despite his illness, he hosts Thanksgiving dinner, fulfilling Reyna’s dream of having a family holiday, despite the undercooked turkey. Reyna finds solace in writing after her father’s death, crafting stories about him as a way to keep his memory alive. In 2016, she and Cory move to Northern California and buy a Victorian house like the one Cory grew up in. Reyna’s dreams of building a loving, stable home have come true. Her father’s dream that his children would become hardworking, self-sufficient adults has also come to fruition. Reyna and her siblings succeed in passing their father’s lesson on to their children. Natalia and Nadia are university students, while Alexa and Randy attend community college, with plans to transfer to a four-year university. Sophia, Carlitos, and Nathan are high school students. The youngest of the group—Eva, Ryan, and Leilani—are in elementary school. Reyna dreams that her children or grandchildren will one day give her a T-shirt with the logo UCSC MOM or UCSC GRANDMA.

Book 2, Chapter 39-Epilogue Analysis

The entwined themes of community and home come to the fore in Reyna’s closing chapters. She sees a different side of her mother when she holds a yard sale in front of her house. Her mother strikes up a conversation with a local fruit vendor and learns he is a hard-working immigrant with a wife and children in Mexico. Reyna admires the ease with which her mother speaks to him and to other locals during the yard sale. Her compassion for strangers shames Reyna, who has never exchanged more than a few words with the vendor. Reyna allowed her fears to dictate how she interacted with strangers in her neighborhood. By contrast, her mother has no such reservations. She is so open with the fruit vendor that she brings him a plate of food for lunch. Her willingness to help a stranger in need sheds light on critical differences between her and her daughter. For Reyna, home is a nice house with a loving family. By contrast, her mother is satisfied with the cluttered one-bedroom apartment she shares with her in-laws. Reyna treats her house like an island of safety in the midst of a crime-ridden neighborhood. Her mother is at ease with the vicissitudes of urban life, as evidenced by her openness with the broader community.

Reyna’s relationship with her mother remains central in the final chapters of her memoir, particularly in Chapter 39 which describes the yard sales at Reyna’s house. Reyna appreciates her mother’s help but disapproves of the way her mother violently disciplines her dog. She blames her mother for the dog’s bad temperament. Her abuse of the dog also reminds Reyna of the abuse she suffered as a child, prompting her to identify with it: “There were times when I was like Güero, when I wanted to bite and snarl at my mother” (298). Reyna reaches her limit when her mother throws away her compost scraps. Instead of letting the incident slide, she watches her mother dig through the garbage to retrieve them. Later that day, she confesses to Mago that she wants to punish their mother: “‘I feel awful about it. It was a shitty thing to do to her,’ I said. ‘There are times when I can’t help myself. There are times when I want to hurt her the way she hurt me–us’” (299). Reyna wants to forgive her mother for abandoning her. She also wants to apologize for upsetting her mother, but she cannot bring herself to do so. Although Reyna’s relationship with her mother remains fraught, she comes to accept the complex ways her mother shows love when she sees her hitting and kissing Güero.

Becoming a mother changes Reyna in fundamental ways. Her conversations with Mago, for example, become more mature and family-centric. Motherhood also provides Reyna with a new perspective on her parents. Growing up, she blamed her parents for her abuse, abandonment, and trauma. Motherhood makes Reyna realize that parents often face impossible choices. For Reyna’s mother and father, the options were to stay in Iguala and live in crushing poverty, or move to the US in search of better opportunities. Their choice was not unlike Reyna’s decision to pursue her dream of becoming a professional writer, which took time away from Nathan. Having children makes Reyna and Mago more sympathetic toward their parents: “I was finally beginning to understand that it takes as much courage to leave as it does to stay, and that being a parent was way more complicated than I had ever imagined” (306).

Finally, Chapter 42 describes Reyna’s big break as a writer: the publication of her first novel. The tenacity she showed during her time at UCSC and in the subsequent years pays off. Reviewers describe her novel in effusive terms, calling it “elegantly written” and “a breathtaking debut” (315). Career success, however, does not diminish Reyna’s determination. She embarks on a national book tour to broaden her readership. Aside from selling more books, her aim is to help other writers of color by demonstrating that they can find a place in the world of publishing. In her Epilogue, Reyna writes about pursuing a Master of Fine Arts in creative writing to hone her craft, all while juggling pregnancy and wedding planning. In other words, the success of her first novel makes her more determined than ever. Cory clearly articulates the importance of Reyna’s tenacity during their visit to his hometown in Chapter 41. When Reyna tells Cory how lucky he is to have grown up in a beautiful Victorian home with a loving family, he replies, “But you’re lucky, too. Because of your experiences you have perseverance, drive, an unyielding desire to succeed. Those are valuable traits to have” (310).