Magical/Realism: Essays on Music, Memory, Fantasy, and Borders

"Like the Witchers, whose avatars she assumes in the video games she played to heal from her white ex-husband’s abuse and betrayal, poet and cultural critic Vanessa Angélica Villarreal leaps across seemingly insurmountable boundaries in this stunning book of interwoven essays and shattered, artfully reassembled memoir. Music and fantasy form the framework of her own bildungsroman as she exposes the bigotry she and her immigrant family survived in the Texas borderlands of her youth and the echoes of that racism throughout the popular culture she adores and remakes through her avid engagement. Villarreal deftly blends her own family’s stories with unique insights into realms like grunge and indie music, Jennifer Lopez rom-coms, the life and death of Selena and the meanings of Game of Thrones."