I love tacos like I love sad Mexican love songs. Boleros, rancheras, al pastor, asada? Soy, como dicen, barrilito sin fondo. Give me everything that’s hot and burning and hurts as it goes down. Give me seconds. I want it sloppy, running down my hand y saladito. That’s how I love my pain—well seasoned. I don’t remember my life before either was a part of me. Both the tastebuds and the heartache an unintended inheritance of forced migration. My parents packed the gritos and sad mariachis in their bags as they made their way north to Southern California. Music first heard on a small radio in a kitchen in a pueblo in Guanajuato and on a rancho in Sinaloa would be the soundtrack to my formative years. Just like the chile and grilled meats that dad made on Sundays when my grandparents visited.
All if it is part of a home that I’ll never really know but will always long for. That cliché of clichés. I’m not even going to say it, though, I will admit that maybe it is the longing and not the taste that’s the real difference between the Mexican food de aquí y the Mexican food de allá.
Mr Coe’s latest novel is another family chronicle. Each book in his “Rotters” trilogy charted his characters’ progress over several years, but “Bournville” is a far more ambitious affair. The novel spans 75 years and follows four generations of the Lamb family; it is a rich account of important occasions, upheavals and transformations in both modern Britain and individual lives.
It’s exasperating at first. But as so often in the past, I fell under Tarantino’s eerie spell. His passionate knowledge of movies and TV is amazing and slightly terrifying. This kind of engagement is on a level that few ever reach.