32 pages • 1 hour read
Luis Alberto UrreaThe House of Broken Angels
Fiction | Novel | Adult | Published in 2018A modern alternative to SparkNotes and CliffsNotes, SuperSummary offers high-quality Study Guides with detailed chapter summaries and analysis of major themes, characters, and more.
Part 3, Chapters 8-10Chapter Summaries & Analyses
Part 3: “Celebration Day”
Chapter 8 Summary: “The Morning of the Party”
The morning of the party, MaryLú and Little Angel wake up and drink fancy American coffee. They talk about how MaryLú hates Paz and still loves her ex-husband. La Gloriosa prepares for the day, spending hours with her lotions and perfumes and make-up. César picks up his son Marco Antonio, a teenager who sings in a Norwegian death metal band. César is confused by his eccentricities but never shames or chastises his son. At the house, Minnie asks Little Angel to get a birthday cake for Big Angel. Little Angel spends time with Big Angel in his bed. Big Angel asks Little Angel to give his gratitude journals to Lalo and Minnie when he dies. César and Little Angel go to Target to order two cakes, one chocolate and one vanilla. On the way, César shares a memory from his childhood, when Don Segundo abandoned them and they ate fried dandelions to avoid starvation. César wonders how a father could treat a child like that. Back at the house, the party preparations are in full swing. Perla and Minnie try to bathe Big Angel, who moans and screams in protest. Finally, the women soothe him, and he gives in.
Chapter 9 Summary: “La Pachanga”
Little Angel and La Gloriosa drive to pick up the cakes at Target. Little Angel is anxious and sweaty with La Gloriosa, who notices his unease. They flirt and drive through beachside neighborhoods before gawking like teenagers in the Target. On the way home, they find Ookie crying and playing basketball alone. La Gloriosa invites him to the birthday party. Back at the house, piles of fast food cover plastic folding tables. Little Angel is disappointed the food isn’t Mexican.
The typical family feuds persist—Uncle Jimbo drinking and making racist remarks, Lupita defending him, Paz trashing MaryLú and vice versa. Marco flirts with a girl he hasn’t seen before and is startled to discover she’s blind. Despite his foolish behavior, she invites him to sit down. Periodically, characters weep over Big Angel’s coming death, including Big Angel himself. His friend Dave reminds him, “Miguel Angel […] it isn’t hard to die. Everybody does it. Even flies do it. […] We’re all terminal” (174). Before Big Angel insists on going back to bed, Minnie surprises him with a mariachi band. He is happier than he has ever been. The party winds down slowly, and narration shifts to the perspective of the ghosts of Mamá América and Don Segundo, looking down on the antics of their descendants.
The chapter ends on Lalo, whose son Giovanni has co-opted him into a hit mission to murder the man who killed Braulio years ago. Giovanni pumps his father full of drugs, and they go on their mission. Lalo comes to later in a psychedelic haze. He fears the murder they committed, but Giovanni insists they haven’t killed anyone. Instead, Lalo fired the gun into the sheetrock and gave a speech about the futility of payback and the permanence of death.
Chapter 10 Summary: “Ookie’s Surprise”
Little Angel reflects on his father’s cruelty when he was a child and insistence on making him a tough Mexican boy. He recalls spreading his mother’s ashes in the ocean soon after she threw out Don Segundo. Meanwhile, at the party, Marco and his new love interest, Lily, are flirting. She thanks him for saving her from boredom. He is falling in love with her. They leave the party holding hands. Ookie opens the old shed in the backyard and shows Little Angel the surprise he and Big Angel have been working on for years. It is a beautiful, rainbow-colored model of San Diego in Legos. Little Angel is amazed: “Perhaps it was the colors that threw him […]. It was all rainbow” (188). Little Angel and Ookie order Matchbox car buses, airplanes, and postal vans to complete the city. They stand in awe, admiring the beautiful work of Big Angel and Ookie.
Part 3, Chapters 8-10 Analysis
In Part 3, many previously established patterns are undone. Characters question their ideas about fatherhood and masculinity, Big Angel accepts his mortality, and the rainbow appears again as a symbol of hope. Big Angel and Little Angel challenge their ideas about masculinity when they lay in bed together, recalling old times. Urrea describes the bed as “[t]heir little raft going down the big river” (139). This space outside of masculine conventions is a haven. Big Angel invites Little Angel to kiss his head, and they marvel at the pleasant gentleness of that bond. Their move toward vulnerability opens them up for growth and change.
Similarly, fatherhood is questioned and embraced in these pages. Big Angel makes a speech he defines as the speech of a “Mexican father.” He says, “All we do […] is love.” (177). In this way, he associates his status as patriarch with a loving role, rather than one based on power and privilege. Finally, Ookie’s rainbow sculpture of San Diego is a symbol of hope and Big Angel’s immortality. Its association with rainbows, and its scale, make it divine for Little Angel, who sees the model as a symbol of his brother’s best self. Through the model, Big Angel lives on after death.
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By Luis Alberto Urrea
