"South Texas Tales: Stories My Father Told Me" is a collection of nine short stories that depict the metaphor that is the Rio Grande Valley of deep, South Texas. The stories go beyond the stereotype of border life, and peel back the complexities of a Tejano culture that is vibrant and true. "This book is full of wonderfully refreshing stories---rich with characters who captivate your heart and universal themes that create a moral experience for the reader. It's the type of book you'll want to use in the classroom and keep by your nightstand." ---Patricia Lee Odabashian, award winning longtime English teacher from Brownsv ille, Texas "The stories are evocative, the language well-chosen and descriptive, the writing strong and spare. Patricia Cisneros Young takes the reader to another time and another country---even if his own. Her stories are a real treat." ---Davis Rankin, Journalist, longtime Radio Talk Show Host in deep, South Texas. "This work is delightful and insightful. Characters seem like people that I have met and known.  Details. . . allow for a visualization and understanding. People are unquestionably Border characters from an era gone by." - - - Manuel Medrano, PhD., Professor of History at the University of Texas at Brownsville, Texas. "[These] vignettes of Brownsville people, part real and part fiction, capture the character of our border community. The reader becomes involved with the characters and the stories. It's as though the essence of our society and culture had been opened to view through a historical prism. And the stories are just plain pleasurable to read." --- Anthony Knopp, Ph.D., Professor of HIstory at the University of Texas at Brownsville, Texas.        Excerpt Hiding out in the chaparral on a cold February night was a miserable way for a grown man to spend an evening. It was necessary, however, since he shot and killed a young man running at breakneck speed to the Rio Grande. "Why did you shoot him? He was only running and he hadn't done anything to you! Why?" asked Luis de la Cos. "If he was running, then, he must have done something!" answered Jorge Guerrero while calmly cleaning the barrel of his pistol.

Professional Reviews
The Art of Forgiveness: Choosing Life in Valley Stories
Book review: ‘South Texas Tales’
By Mimosa Stephenson

In “South Texas Tales: Stories My Father Told Me,” Patricia Cisneros Young, who recently earned her master’s in English from UTB/TSC and whose ancestors came to the Brownsville-Matamoros area in the 17th century from Santander in Spain, recounts life-and-death stories of earlier times in the sister cities when the only barrier between the cities was a great river.
Cisneros Young admits that the tales grew from the seeds planted by her father on leisurely Sunday afternoons, and that she has structured and developed them. They mix realistic specific detail familiar to the local population, such as a description of First Presbyterian Church, and a subtle otherworldly mythical quality. These tales of conflict and resolution have been crafted to put forward Cisneros Young’s prevailing theme, that forgiveness brings healing and that life is better than death.
In “Old Ambition,” the collection’s first story, a poor 77-year-old man takes accordion lessons and talks with God in the cathedral, reminding him of the time he spent in the hay, and with his donkey in the stable where he sleeps. The story seems medieval in its connecting Christ with the animals. The reader learns that Baldomero had come from a well-to-do family and lived riotously in his youth, but now in his poverty he is content as he, humble and forgiven, talks with the Lord.
The best story in the collection is “The Courtship of Red Collins,” a fine blending of tragedy and comedy that subtly reminds of “The Good Samaritan.” The title character, after being spurned by one Cisneros Young lady and pursued by another, falls victim to polio only to be rescued, nursed and ultimately forgiven by the brother of an innocent Cisneros Young man that he, 10 years before as a Cisneros Young, brash Texas Ranger, despising all “Meskins,” hanged, along with the man’s 11-year-old son.
The final story, “A Good Day for Dying,” is narrated through the eyes of an 80-year-old wealthy rancher named Sebastian, who calls his family to come so that he may say goodbye before he dies, even though his grandson needs a week to travel by horse and steamboat from Texas A&M in College Station. After all have arrived, the old man sees that he is still needed because Diego is not yet ready to assume control of his holdings, the pregnant Maria José is vulnerable and the cantankerous Marta needs reining in. He chooses life.
Cisneros Young’s stories are valuable for the light they shed on the history of the two cities near the mouth of the Rio Grande and for the pleasure they give in the reading, but most importantly they should be read because they espouse the life-giving force of forgiveness, both for the forgiven and the forgiver, in a world that seems bent on retaliation and death.
--Mimosa Stephenson is a professor in the English and Communication Department at UTB/TSC.


Volume 60, Issue 28
April 28, 2008
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Author wields Valley's storytelling tradition
Author wields Valley’s storytelling tradition
South Texas Tales recently published
February 15, 2008 - 9:47AM
Martin Winchester
Critic's Nook
A new voice has emerged on the Rio Grande Valley literary scene, but for those who have grown up on its rich local story-telling tradition it’s going to sound very familiar.
Patricia Cisneros Young of Brownsville recently published her own book of stories titled South Texas Tales: stories my father told me (Tate Publishing, $12.95)
Young’s family has lived in the region since 1749. “My parents are both descendants of the original 13 families who settled San Juan de los Esteros Hermosos (now modern day Matamoros) under the leadership of my ancestor, Capitan Hinojosa,” she said.
Growing up with that much history around her, it was hard not to fall in love with the art of story-telling. Young, 54, was determined to carry on that tradition by putting many of her favorite stories into print.
“I realize that if I don’t tell these stories — even if they are fiction peppered with truth — they will be lost forever. I want to give my characters a voice because some of them haunt me,” she said.
“My father and I would talk about characters who lived in Brownsville and Matamoros on Sunday afternoons after our weekly Sunday luncheon. We would invariably sit on my front porch, away from the others, and he would tell me about the people he had heard about or known. I then would make up the rest.”
One of those stories was about a serial killer whose hands would tremble if he hadn’t killed someone. Young spent weeks writing the story called “Killer” and anxiously presented it to her father for his approval. When he liked it, she knew she had a winner.
“Another time my dad and I were discussing Doña Porfiria, the peanut lady who sold peanuts at the Mercado in Matamoros and who would visit my grandmother occasionally. Remembering her led to “Doña Porfiria Comes Calling,” she said.
Some of Young’s other stories deal with the tension between Anglos and Hispanics along the border in the late 19th and early 20th centuries, when the Texas Rangers were notorious for their brutal tactics.
“The conflicts and the themes are very different in each story. Some of them have to do with redemption while others show the decay inherent in selfishness and isolation. There are victories and defeats and they are all knit together in the stories’ patterns,” she said.
Young spent more than two years writing and rewriting the stories, all while working full time teaching English at both Rivera High School and University of Texas at Brownsville.
Paying homage to those family members who instilled a love for story-telling, Young also credits her professors at UTB with helping her improve her writing.
“Dr. Mimosa Stephenson and Dr. Ronny Noor, among others, stand out as my writing mentors and helped develop discipline and structure,” she said.
Still, no one deserves more credit than her father.
“I will always love how my father told us stories when we were children. He would talk about the circus and the painted horses that were red, gold, silver, orange, green, etc. He made my imagination fly.”
Already a published poet, Young hopes to write another book of stories this summer and promises that the characters in South Texas Tales will re-emerge in her next work.
“They are alternate realities for me and I love to revisit them,” she said.
———
Martin Winchester is a book critic for The Monitor. He is an English teacher at IDEA College Preparatory in Donna. Send comments to mwinchester@ideapublicschools.org



Stories of the Border, crossing generations
Stories of the border, crossing generations
By Laura Tillman/The Brownsville Herald
December 29, 2007 - 11:16PM


“In South Texas Tales: Stories My Father Told Me,” Patricia Cisneros Young weaves spare yet vibrant portraits of the lives of Matamoros and Brownsville residents of the past.

Young focuses on the characters that inhabited the two cities, but also incorporates historical details that will fascinate local readers, providing them with a glimpse at what the cities used to look like.

In the short story, “The Courtship of Red Collins,” Young writes,

“Swearing under his breath, Red Collins walked out of the tired old house, let the screen door slam behind him, and walked hurriedly towards Elizabeth Street and the outskirts of Brownsville, Texas.

“The Presbyterian Church was on the very edge of town. Its tall spires were made taller by a basement that lay half in and half out of the delta clay it was built on.”

Such passages magnify the changes the city has undergone in the decades since Young’s father, Sergio Cisneros, Sr. told her the stories on the Saturday afternoons of her childhood.

Young has a talent for creating clear imagery. Though the dialogue of the book is sometimes forced and overly verbose, the physical descriptions bring them to life.

In “A Good Day for Dying,” Young describes the character Sebastian,

“(The South Texas sun) had sucked all the moisture out of his skin and turned it into leather — a hide that barely covered the sharp cheekbones and sunken eyes that gleamed a faded, cloudy gray.”

Ultimately, the greatest value of Young’s book comes from the sheer accomplishment of creating such an extensive volume of stories about the region.

No two of the dozens of characters in the nine stories in the book are the same. Their unique personalities underscore what all locals know to be true: there is a no stereotypical border resident.

Reader Reviews for "South Texas Tales: Stories My Father Told Me"

Reviewed by John Domino	4/24/2009
You have special talent! God Bless!

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