Take This Man (28 page)

Q: What are you working on now? Will you be returning to Echo Park in any future works?

A: I've got ideas for one, maybe two, novels. Echo Park has been my Yoknapatawpha County for two books. It's been a good home to me but perhaps it's time to explore some new undiscovered country.

Enhance Your Book Club

On a visit to Istanbul, Turkey, Brando participated in the tradition of writing messages to loved ones, living or departed, on scraps of paper. Have members do the same and pen notes to someone special, whether or not you release the missives into the wind.

Brando and his grandmother were movie buffs and saw eight to ten a month. Share who you would cast as Brando, June, Maria, Frank, and others featured in the book if
Take This Man
were made into a film.

Pair your reading of
Take This Man
with Brando's novel
The Madonnas of Echo Park
, which is set in the Los Angeles neighborhood where he grew up.

Take a virtual tour of the Central Library, where June and Brando were regulars. Today the building is considered an architectural highlight of downtown Los Angeles. Visit http://www.lapl.org/branches/central-library and click on “Art & Architecture in Central Library.”

Learn more about the author at
www.brandoskyhorse.com
.

About the Author

Born and raised in Echo Park, California, Brando Skyhorse is a graduate of Stanford University and the Master of Fine Arts ­Writers ­Workshop program at the University of California at Irvine. His first book,
The Madonnas of Echo Park
, received the 2011 PEN/­Hemingway Award and the Sue Kaufman Prize for First Fiction from the American ­Academy of Arts and Letters. For speaking engagements and First Year Experience inquiries, please contact the author at
brandoskyhorse.com
.

Also by Brando Skyhorse

The Madonnas of Echo Park

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Copyright © 2014 by Brando Skyhorse

Some names have been changed.

All rights reserved, including the right to reproduce this book or portions thereof in any form whatsoever. For information address Simon & Schuster Subsidiary Rights Department, 1230 Avenue of the Americas, New York, NY 10020.

First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition June 2014

SIMON & SCHUSTER and colophon are registered trademarks of Simon & Schuster, Inc.

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.

Interior design by Erich Hobbing

Jacket design Rodrigo Corral

Jacket photograph Danielle Donders–Mothership Photography/Flickr/Getty Images
Author photograph © Eric van den Brulle

Library of Congress Cataloging-in-Publication Data

Skyhorse, Brando.

Take this man : a memoir / Brando Skyhorse.—First Simon & Schuster hardcover edition.

pages cm

1. Skyhorse, Brando—Childhood and youth. 2. Skyhorse, Brando—Family. 3. Authors, ­American—21st century—Biography. 4. Authors, American—21st century—Family ­relationships. 5. Mothers and sons—United States. 6. Fathers and sons—United States. 7. Identity ­(Psychology)—United States. 8. Mexican Americans—California—Los Angeles—Biography. 9. Echo Park (Los Angeles, Calif.)—Biography. 10. Los Angeles (Calif.)—Biography. I. Title.

PS3619.K947Z468 2014

818'.603—dc23

[B]

2013047740

ISBN 978-1-4391-7087-8

ISBN 978-1-4391-7090-8 (ebook)