Item #116 in my Kerouac bookshelf curation project is this hardcover 2013 The University of Arizona Press 1st edition 1st printing of Mañana Means Heaven by award-winning author, Tim Z. Hernandez. 230 pages, it measures about 6" x 9" and is in very good condition. The provenance is uncertain -- I may have received this copy directly from the author. I know that the actual copy I read and reviewed is an advance reading copy I got directly from the publisher (being curated next).
I've reviewed Tim's excellent book on The Daily Beat. Click here to read that July 31, 2013 review. Tim graciously agreed to write a guest blog for us on September 17, 2013: click here to read it.
For those new to this book or to Kerouac, a famous section of Jack's On The Road deals with his brief affair in California with a migrant farmworker named Terry, real-life Bea Franco. That story from On The Road was published as a short story in Paris Review in 1956 as "The Mexican Girl." Tim located and interviewed Bea, leading to this delightful book.
From the inside dust cover:
Mañana Means Heaven deftly combines fact and fiction to pull back the veil on one of literature's most mysterious and evocative characters. Inspired by Franco's love letters to Kerouac and Hernandez's interviews with Franco, now in her nineties [she died one week after first holding the book in her hands - click here] and living in relative obscurity, the novel brings this lost gem of a story out of the shadows and into the spotlight.
As I said in my review, "Tim Z. Hernandez has created an important entry for the Kerouac canon that also stands on its own merits as a well-crafted novel about love and loss. Bravo." Mañana Means Heaven definitely deserves a space on your Kerouac bookshelf.
Below is a picture of Shelf #4 of my Kerouac bookshelf showing the placement of this book (10th from the left) on the day I started curating my collection. Next up: another copy of Mañana Means Heaven by Tim Z. Hernandez.
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| Shelf #4 of my Kerouac bookshelf |
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