ACCORDION EULOGIES

A U.S.–born author of Mexican heritage uses the music and history of the accordion to help him investigate his ancestry.

In this poetic follow-up to Spirit Run, Álvarez, who grew up in Yakima, Washington, turns to the music of his people to uncover family secrets, particularly those pertaining to his grandfather, Eulogio, a traveling accordionist who left his family in Mexico and may have committed a wrong that put a curse on the family. For Álvarez’s father, the pain of this separation lingers, and the author has “spent my life fruitlessly trying to close his hurt for him.” The author chronicles his travels to Mexico, where Eulogio, now in his 90s, still lives, to learn about his world by studying the accordion, “invok[ing] its ancient gestures in order to peel back the layers of myself.” This book is a combination of that journey, a history of the accordion, and a primer on the types of music for which it is used, including corrido music, “a genre of accordion music that speaks of immigrant tragedies in the hopes that expressing pain might soften it.” Álvarez also traveled to Louisiana, Texas, and the U.K. to discover the accordion’s roots and interview musicians, among them “zydeco legend” Jeffery Broussard; Ed Poullard, “one of the last remaining Black Creole accordion makers”; and British musician Will Pound, who talks animatedly about the “color in his music” and for whom music has had therapeutic meaning since two significant childhood surgeries. The tone is inconsistent—lyrical in chapters about Álvarez’s family, more reportorial when recounting his travels and interviews—but the author makes his quest genuinely moving and shows how, for many marginalized communities, “accordion playing is an act of resistance.”

A heartfelt memoir that serves as “a reminder of what it takes to build love and community for oneself and one’s family.”