Book Description

There are many streets across America located within, or near the Barrios. Mulberry Street is one of those found in Roswell, New Mexico where one family struggles against the inevitability of failure and death. La Licha is the story of one woman's family and how abuse, alcohol, and drugs can take them from the appearance of respectability in the early years, to a place where death becomes a constant companion as years pass. Licha is an ordinary woman faced with extraordinary challenges as her sons mature and begin their paths of self-destruction and a common adage is, "It's better to have a drug dealer in the family since it means you won't have to support them any longer." In this novel, children, teenagers, young men, and those women unlucky enough to live on Mulberry Street find little comfort in a life where heroes are absent, and dreams are unrealized. Follow each of the members of the Galindo family through the decades as they experience life at the edge of the barrio during the tumultuous period of their adolescent years, and then later as they become young men struggling to find their identity. There are others who live on this street of sorrows like Don Luis, the old man who's drinking often finds him passed out unceremoniously in the street or his front yard. Or, Mama Dia and her ability to act as a window to the madness occurring on a daily basis with her common sense insight into the madness she witnesses. The pages of La Licha tell a story of a mother's unselfish love, a brotherhood of men who live and die together, and the futility of hope for a better future.