Fernando Piñón, a writer, former Laredoan, and the author of Transcendence will lecture on his first work of fiction on Thursday, March 22, from 6:00 to 8:00 p.m. at the Joe A. Guerra Laredo Public Library Multi-Purpose Room at 1120 East Calton Road.
Piñón’s novel explores the corruptive nature of laundered money along the Texas-Mexico border. Per the story line, a hurricane brings a frustrated middle- aged businessman and a Mexican teenager together as they seek shelter in the inundated town of Old Guerrero. The man seeks to change his reality of business failures, and the boy wants to escape a life of poverty by coming to work illegally in the United States.
According to William England, who published Transcendence, “This is a novel that deals with one of the major social, economic, and political problems not only along the Texas-Mexico border but throughout the United States. Piñón blends the plot and the characters in a way that truly reflects the reality of the border today, and in doing so shows us how hope, trust, and the power of love can be entities of transcendence, while greed and selfishness can be agents of destructiveness.”
Transcendence is Piñón’s sixth book. His others are Searching for America, Dynamics of Ethnic Politics (2015), Patrón Democracy (1985), and Child of the Half Millennium: What it Means and How it Feels to be Mexican American (2001).
Patron Democracy provides a history of patronismo in Laredo and Webb County and how a sunglasses manufacturer (Aldo Tatangelo) who had relocated from Rhode Island to Laredo transformed city government.
A book-signing follows Piñon’s comments. Copies of Transcendence will be available for purchase.
Piñón is a retired professor of political science at San Antonio College and an adjunct professor at the University of Texas at San Antonio (UTSA). After earning degrees at University of North Texas, Piñón was the editor of the Laredo Morning Times from 1971 to 1974. The native Laredoan is a graduate of St. Augustine High School and Laredo Junior College.
For more information about the event, contact Renee LaPerriere at (956) 795-2400, X2237 or via e-mail at renee@laredolibrary.org
