A review by leaflibrary
Mr. Mendoza's Paintbrush by Luis Alberto Urrea

adventurous informative reflective medium-paced

• Plot- or character-driven? A mix
• Strong character development? No
• Loveable characters? It's complicated
• Diverse cast of characters? It's complicated
• Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes

3.5

Somewhere between a story book and a graphic novel, Mr. Mendoza's Paintbrush explores the narrator's nostalgia for his childhood village and one particularly unpopular visionary, the enigmatic and moral Mr. Mendoza. "Mr. Mendoza had taken the controversial position that he was the graffiti king of all Mexico. But we didn't want a graffiti king." Mr. Mendoza's graffiti is all looping text, cryptic and moralistic. He tags not only buildings, but bodies, like the time he catches the narrator and his cousin spying on bathing school girls, strips their clothes, labels their skin with epithets like, "pervert" and the later useful, "I live for sex," and sends the boys running naked through the village streets.

The whole story is both magical and gritty, portraying the everyday life of a seemingly doomed village with the exagerated intrigue of a "macho" man looking back on an idealized, unreachable time. What became of the narrator, the village, or the heaven-bound graffiti king is unclear, but the meandering journey through a remembered hometown in Mexico makes a lasting mark.