A view of exiles lives in Mexico through a boy’s eyes
Joel Agee lived in Mexico with his mother and German stepfather and wrote about his time there in his 1981 memoir, “Twelve Years: An American Boyhood in East German.”
Agee, the son of celebrated novelist James Agee, returns to Mexico in his debut novel, “The Stone World.”
Though it’s drawn from life, it’s tempting to consider “The Stone World” in the context of a Bildungsroman, a novel that follows its main character in childhood through a series of conflicts on a quest for identity. A true Bildungsroman isn’t just a moment in time, but a process toward a maturation, a development of a sense of self.
Though Pira, the protagonist of “The Stone World,” is a 6-year-old boy, nearly every chapter of this mesmeric story is a new act or movement in a journey toward experiences that build to a state of knowing about the world — a process imbued with a growing self-awareness.
His real name is Peter Vogelsang, but “Pira” is the way his name is pronounced in the unnamed Mexican town in the 1940s where he lives with his mother, Martha, his stepfather, Bruno, and the family’s housekeeper, Zita. He prefers the Spanish pronunciation, he says, because he does not want to be a gringo. If he had his way, he would be a real Mexicano and make his home forever right there in Mexico.
There is another important story here to do with the European artists and writers who fled from fascism. The Red Scare that emerged in the United States then drove many of those who identified as communists or communist sympathizers on to Latin America. For as much as he loves his home country of Germany, Bruno has run away and brought his family with him. Martha is a violinist. Young Pira wants to be a poet.
This novel features a twice-exiled community that clings to its beliefs. And we learn about this passionate conviction as Pira does.
Pira spends a lot of time with adults, but he also has friends his own age.
Chris is a motherless boy with a wealthy and difficult father. Arón has no father, and there are intimations that his mother is impatient and abusive. The boys’ playdates reveal much about their personalities and the ways that each negotiates the wonders and sorrows and complications inherent in families and friendships.
While Pira plays, he overhears the grown-ups talking about everything from the Communist revolution to the untimely death of Manolete, the famous bullfighter.
A kind of unspoken fear starts to rule the boy’s life. The big issues of violence and war get Pira worked up alongside his worries about school and keeping peace with his friends. Soon Pira learns that Bruno wants to move the family back to Germany, but he wants to stay in Mexico. When Bruno tells him that “two people can have opposite wishes and still love each other,” it seems like a message Pira has been waiting to hear to blunt the edges of his anxiety.
Pira also lives in a world of his own imagination, filled with fantastical figures, which acts as a kind of mirror of the adult world.
At first, he sees the ways that grownups socialize. He finds no real interest there until their conversations and debates imply danger and he learns about the arrests of his parents’ cherished friends. Strikes and revolutions are on the minds of the grown-ups. Pira knows that there is much that can disrupt the simple, serene life his family has created.
The story swings between the resonances of languorous, carefree summer days and the nervous energy of the big and small questions that cloud a child’s mind. He is naïve and unpretentious, and it is easy to move into his world and get lost — and find ourselves — in its magic.