Victoria Price reads from The Way of Being Lost

Lalo’s and Big Angel’s ruminations are among those of many characters in Urrea’s novel, which uses a third-person omniscient point of view to bring us into and out of the minds of the congregants at América’s funeral and Big Angel’s party. The technique nicely conveys the multitude of voices and outlooks that makes families such complex organisms. However, the viewpoint shifts so often that it can cause a bit of literary whiplash. The novel is brimming with characters, to the extent that a chart of the family tree would have been an appreciated resource. Keeping track of not just who is who but who is thinking what can become arduous at times.

The novel is somewhat self-conscious about its sprawl. Little Angel takes notes in a notebook, explaining to Lalo, “I can’t keep track of what they’re saying. Or who they are.” It is self-conscious in other ways as well, alluding to South American novels in which the men in a family share a name, or joking about children playing with a boombox: “The peewees apparently thought it was still the ’80s.” The text is rife with cultural references, and though its main events are set around 2015, many of these references are dated: Liberace, the Supremes, “Bootylicious.” Are college kids still into Pearl Jam?

Where The House of Broken Angels succeeds is in its depiction of the pettiness and love that so peculiarly intertwine in families. In particular, the relationship between Big Angel and Little Angel is loving and fraught, heightened by the sense that they must get it all out in the open with too little time. Urrea, a Pulitzer Prize finalist for (2004), has clearly written from the heart: He explains on his website that his own brother died within a month of burying his mother. His novel is an intimate tribute to the bonds we don’t get to choose, but to which we owe everything. — Grace Parazzoli

“The House of Broken Angels” is on sale Tuesday, March 6.