Managua Mon Amour (Nevermore)

<p><u>Every time Marc Zimmerman publishes a new book I celebrate. He is a wonderful writer ... [who] doesn't disappoint. Luis </u>Alberto<u> Urrea author of </u><em><u>The Hummingbird's Daughter Into the Beautiful North The House of Broken Angels </u></em><u>and much more. </u></p><p><br></p><p><u>Both epic and </u>personal<u> Marc Zimmerman's </u>novel memoir-style novel<em><u> </u></em><u>tells how his divorced Jewish American protagonist Mel marries Lena a brilliant Central American activist/intellectual and en</u>dan<u>gers his academic career and life.</u> <u>He and Lena participate in anti-war anti-Fascist and pro-Latino rights struggles; both join in Nicaragua's anti-somocista movement</u> while <u>Lena continues on her academic path and Mel fights to keep his intellectual calling alive</u> even as he takes on jobs that have him fighting <u>against migrant worker exploitation se</u>xual abuse<u> and drug-dealing gang violence</u>. Breaking up and joining once again the couple work in the Sandinista Revolution only to break up again with Mel finding work in a Cuban <u>refugee camp and finally winning a university home in a journey that painfully brings down the curtain on his closest human </u>relationship.</p><p><br></p><p><u>Like Zimmerman's </u><em><u>No Light from He</u></em><u>aven this book is about a marriage but now it is a second time around-one which emerges out of the late 60s projecting new forms of radical thought and action as tensions </u>intimate<u> academic and political turn toward revolution and rupture. The author's </u><em><u>Sandino on the Border</u></em><u> tells parts of this story but here is the complete account </u>of every <u>issue mistake</u> and adventure<u> in a narrative of thwarted ambitions </u>revolution <u>conflict</u><u> and heartbreak </u>about<u> a man and woman seeking to resolve their conflicts as they move from San Diego and Mexican borderlands to Europe Minnesota Caracas Nicaragua and Chicago.</u></p><p><br></p><p><u>Marc Zimmerman</u>'s memory fictions include<u> </u><em><u>Martin and Marvin</u><u> The Italian Daze</u></em><u> and </u><em><u>The Short of It All</u></em><u> as well as </u><em><u>Genesis</u></em><u> </u><em><u>Two Ways West</u></em><u> </u><em><u>No Light from Heaven</u></em><u> </u><em><u>The Border Trilogy</u></em><u> and now </u><em><u>Managua Mon Amour</u> (Nevermore)</em><u> the final book of </u>the<u> first cycle of his </u><em><u>Illusion of Memories </u></em><u>series</u><em><u> </u></em>(Floricanto Press 2016-2020)<em> </em><u>in which memories tend toward fictional form while recounting the author's life and the</u> <u>many who mark his path from birth to the near end of his days.</u></p><p><br></p>