Bingo Row 4 – Green
I’ve been meaning to read Chicano Frankenstein by Daniel A Olivas for one reason. The title is Chicano Frankenstein, which I find intriguing.
It’s a modern retelling of Frankenstein, making it a post modern Prometheus. (I made myself laugh). But really it doesn’t have many parallels with the inspiration because the protagonists are nice and reasonable.
In a world where corpses are reanimated for labor or something, some reanimated man just lives his life as politics and human rights issues happen. The unnamed protagonist is fun in a way the unnamed man in Frankenstein wasn’t. He eats toast and watches HGTV. The pharmacy doesn’t have his meds. He gets along with his girlfriend’s family and friends. Because he’s part of a marginalized community, some things are hard and some people treat him poorly. And by marginalized group, I mean reanimated. Racism around his Chicano body’s past (and Chicana girlfriend’s present) doesn’t seem to be an issue.
The political commentary is blatant. The POTUS is a clear Trump stand-in, Frankensteins (stitchers) are clear marginalized scapegoat stand-ins. It’s pretty 1:1 and it works well enough.
My biggest problem was the deuteragonist girlfriend. First, her name was Faustina and she’s a lawyer. I kept on waiting for her to make a bargain. If she did, I didn’t notice because I was looking for something more faustian. Maybe a reread will show something subtle, but I think her name is just Faustina. Besides that, some of her parts seemed to just be there so the reader would know she’s not just the girlfriend – she’s her own damn character. But those parts felt very shoved in and unnecessary. Eating breakfast with her boyfriend showed Faustina’s character a lot more than banter-and-sass strong female friendship.
It’s a minor complaint though.
Ultimately, it’s a nice story about nice people dealing with unpleasant very real things in a reasonable and stable way, which is damn refreshing.