Take This Man: A Memoir

When he was three years old, Brando Kelly Ulloa was abandoned by his immigrant father. His mother, Maria, dreaming of a more exciting life, saw no reason for her son to live his life as a Mexican just because he was born one. The life of "Brando Skyhorse," the American Indian son of an incarcerated political activist, was about to begin. Through a series of letters to Paul Skyhorse Johnson, a stranger in prison for armed robbery, Maria reinvents herself and her young son as American Indians in the lively Mexican-American neighborhood of Echo Park, California. There Brando and his mother live with his acerbic grandmother and a rotating cast of surrogate fathers. It will be over thirty years before Brando begins to untangle the truth, when a surprise discovery online leads him to his biological father at last. From an acclaimed, prize-winning novelist, this literary memoir captures an unforgettable mother-son story and a boy's single-minded search for a father, wherever he can find one.--From publisher description.