(El Centro, California, June 18, 2004) iUniverse, Inc., the leading provider of publishing technology solutions for authors, announced today that P. Brian McNeece's "political romance" novel Crossings is now available. The staff at iUniverse has awarded Crossings with its Editor's Choice award.
Amid cracked granite and boulder-strewn mountains across the California-Mexico border, two villages exist side-by-side. Aurelio Gonzalez, a headstrong but naïve college graduate arrives from the south of Mexico to fulfill his national teaching commitment.
In the early 1990's international turmoil has turned the villages' peaceful coexistence into a cauldron of conflict. When Aurelio learns that he is but a "ghost" professor in Ejido Jacumé, Baja California, he crosses the newly tense border to find work in the U.S. and touches the heart of his boss Kristin Kuhl.
But U.S. Border Patrol agent Raul Camacho has other ideas for Kristin's affections. Complicating Aurelio's troubled world, Mexican villager Marta Uribe tempts Aurelio with a more profitable, more sensuous path.
The mysterious smuggler on the hill also has a special plan for Aurelio as well. Through it all, Aurelio taps the magic of his native Oaxaca and learns to be a man of honor in two countries.
"Crossings grew out of a visit to a retired friend of mine who lives within a few meters of the Mexican border in Jacumba. His stories about the symbiotic, bi-national relationship of two small mountain villages enchanted me into many more visits on both sides of the border. What I found was a multi-leveled microcosm of how Americans and Mexicans cope with the cultural boundary between two peoples who are in turns seduced and puzzled by each other."
"I hope the reader will enjoy the love story between Aurelio Gonzalez, a poor but well-educated Indian from Oaxaca, and Kristin Kuhl, also an immigrant from Switzerland, as they both search for their place along the border."
This book will open the eyes of anyone interested in the cultural mating dance between Mexico and the U.S. It shows the U.S. frontier through the eyes of a university-educated Mexican looking north from the safety of his Mexican nest, but who aspires for more than his native country can offer.
A native of Imperial Valley, P. Brian McNeece has spent years exploring the geography and culture of the California-Mexico border. With degrees in philosophy, linguistics, and multicultural education, he is a Fulbright scholar in Mexico and an English professor at Imperial Valley College. McNeece lives twelve miles from the Mexican border in El Centro, California with his wife Angie and three boys. His first book, Slipknots, is a collection of short essays about life in the border region.
Crossings, by P. Brian McNeece. ISBN 0-595-31210-1. June 2004. $17.95. iUniverse, available at www.iUniverse.com. and www.barnesandnoble.com. and for booksellers, at Ingram.
http://www.iuniverse.com/bookstore/book_detail.asp?isbn=0-595-31210-1
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