Bones Worth Breaking

February 26, 2024
Martinez’s immersive debut chronicles his tumultuous early life and the bond he shared with his late younger brother, Mike. The boys’ family moved often across the U.S., Brazil, and Puerto Rico, before settling in a small Idaho Mormon community, where their mixed-race household stood out—their mother was half Black, half Indigenous; their father was white and adopted by Mexican parents who raised him Mormon. Early on, the brothers learned to avoid or repress discomfort: when Martinez was caught “playing doctor” with a neighbor girl, his father told him he was “making Jesus cry”; when he and Mike began to sustain cuts and broken bones from skateboarding, they hid their wounds to avoid a fuss. “Fear ruled our household,” Martinez recalls. “Fear of mistakes, fear of anger, fear of god.... Fear of letting others down.” By the time the boys entered middle school, both began using drugs as an escape from the severity and coldness of their home life. In late adolescence, their paths split: Martinez attended various colleges and embarked on a mission to Brazil, while Mike’s opiate use worsened and he became homeless. Then, in 2021, after Martinez began writing the memoir, Mike died of sepsis in prison, and Martinez resolved to confront through therapy the lifelong saudade (Portuguese for a “feeling of absence”) that plagued both brothers. The author revitalizes well-worn themes of racism, addiction, and religious trauma with his sense of urgency and vivid language. This marks Martinez a writer to watch. Agent: Mariah Stovall, Trellis Literary.

Starred review from February 1, 2024

Martinez's first book is a raw, gritty, and powerfully honest memoir of the life of two brothers, lived in the liminal spaces of family, school, religion, race, and nationality. It opens with stomach-churning detail about the author's childhood injuries, especially the broken bones and untreated gashes accrued as he and his younger brother, Mike, pushed themselves skateboarding. These scenes become vivid metaphors for the pain and challenges the brothers would experience as they are shaped by family dysfunction, the expectations of their Mormon religion, and systemic racism as Black and Brazilian American people. One of the brothers has a substance-use disorder, while the other tries to improve his own mental health. The narrative moves back and forth through time, letting readers know early on that Mike has died. Martinez slowly fills in the pieces of his story in an engrossing way. The details are often heavy when they come, and Martinez excels at visceral and emotionally aware descriptions. VERDICT This memoir is a poignant portrait of the love between two brothers and a shared life, with descriptions of traumatic experiences and the resulting scars. The relevance of the book's themes and topics, alongside Martinez's openness and exceptional writing skill, will undoubtedly connect with many readers.--Zachariah Motts

Copyright 2024 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

February 15, 2024
A memoir of death, addiction, family history, and recovery. "Drugs were what I knew before the mission, and drugs were what I went back to," writes Martinez of an interlude that found him proselytizing for his Mormon faith in Brazil. The drugs are constant throughout this often repetitive memoir, which has an MFA workshop feel to it, if grittier than most: There's heroin, cocaine, and every other sort of mind-altering substance, consumed against a bookish backdrop that finds the author writing while using: "My dreams had merged--my love of books and my need for drugs--or the dream and nightmare were fighting one another." His younger brother was less fortunate: Though intelligent and observant, and though, as Martinez writes, "we were more stupid than dangerous," he wound up being ground down by a legal system that disproportionately punishes people of color. On that note, Martinez teases out an identity with many strands: bloodlines from Africa, Brazil, Indigenous South America, and Europe, with a history that implicates "my Portuguese ancestors...[who] forced my African ancestors into boats and brought them across the Atlantic." Later, the author writes, "What I know is that I am an other in a nation and world that demands categorization." Martinez's prose comes to life when he honors his late brother, and he is also insightful on his break with the church, which he condemns as being characterized by "racism, obsession about sin, right-wing politics, bigotry, misogyny, and homophobia." His views of academia are scarcely less excoriating, as he rightly questions why the faculty of his school is overwhelmingly white while only a little more than a third of the students are. It all adds up to a mixed bag, and though it's not The Basketball Diaries, it has its moments. An adequate exercise in remembrance, punctuated by memorable moments of resistance and righteous anger.

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March 15, 2024
Author Martinez wanted to write this memoir with his younger brother, Mike, an energetic man who could pick up any skill, but Mike passed away in prison during the COVID-19 pandemic. Together, the brothers had survived the many ups and downs of their childhoods. Growing up with Black, Indigenous, Brazilian, and white heritage in Idaho, Florida, and Puerto Rico, they struggled to feel a sense of belonging anywhere. Their family was active in the Church of Latter Day Saints, and both brothers rebelled against their father's rules and expectations. By the time they were teenagers, David and Mike were fighting addiction and mental health issues that would carry through into their adult lives. Martinez reflects on his upbringing and the sense of dislocation that defined most of his life. He describes loss and love and wounds physical and emotional. His love for Mike is woven throughout this book, as he writes evocatively about the joys and pains of their shared lives and divergent paths as adults. Readers will connect with Martinez's honest and revelatory writing.

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