University of Wisconsin Press

MADRE and I: A Memoir of Our Immigrant Lives University of Wisconsin Press

In this moving and funny memoir, award-winning playwright Guillermo Reyes untangles his life as the secretly illegitimate son of a Chilean immigrant to the United States and as a young man struggling with sexual repression, body image, and gay identity. But this is a double-decker memoir that also tells the poignant, bittersweet, and adventurous story of Guillermo's mother, Maria, who supports herself and her son cleaning houses and then working as a nanny in Washington, D. C. and eventually in Hollywood. In one memorable scene, after realizing that her friend Carmen is cleaning the house of one of the producers of Annie Hall, Maria recruits her to take her picture as she poses dramatically with Mr. Joffe's Oscar in hand. It is Maria's defiant yet determined attitude amidst her sacrifices that allows for Guillermo's spirited coming of age and coming out. Their common ground is the drama of their encounters with discovery, heartbreak, and passion--the explosive emotions that light up the stage of their two-actor theater.