Lone Star Book Blog Tour: On Wings of Silence: Mexico ’68 by Dede Fox

ON WINGS OF SILENCE:
Mexico ’68
by
DEDE FOX
Genre:  Historical / Novel in Verse / Literary Fiction
Publisher: Lamar University Literary Press
Date of Publication: April 2, 2019
Number of Pages: 196

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On Wings of Silence is the story of seventeen-year-old Diana Green, who travels from Texas to Mexico City searching for adventure, freedom, and romance. She finds all three. 
 
Then Diana’s first love Guillermo vanishes during the revolutionary chaos prior to the ’68 Olympics. Heartbroken, she searches for the truth about his disappearance. As police track, threaten, and abuse those who ask questions, she refuses to be silenced and risks becoming one of the missing.
 
Based on real events, On Wings of Silence uses historical details to bring to life the horror of the Tlatelolco Massacre, presented through the eyes of a young woman readers will care about and admire.
“This incredible story…is told in a masterful way that engages the reader with its protagonist and the other characters from the start. They are authentic. We know people like them and we care what happens to them. In Fox’s clear voice, mystery, romance and suspense build steadily to the end. Pitched toward young adult readers, this is a good read for any age.” — Dianne Logan
 

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“Silence always has the final word.”

As a novel in verse, On Wings of Silence: Mexico ’68 is truly an amazing experience. A simple poem, a novella, or a full-length novel in prose can easily capture the horrifying moments of the Tlatelolco massacre in Mexico City just before the 1968 Olympics. But this novel in verse poetically places you in that exact spot through the eyes of 17-year-old Diana, an American student attending the university for college credits and seizing her independence from the life her parents expect her to choose.

While the 1968 massacre is the backdrop for this story, what takes center stage is all the emotions evoked in a young girl’s heart. The excitement of a foreign city. The refusal to become one of the many women who choose marriage as the only way. The reluctance of falling in love and everything that entails. The joy of falling in love and tasting the cinnamon kisses from a boy named Guillermo. The fear of disappearing, with no one to remember her name.

This story is about lost innocence, but not in the carnal sense. Instead, Diana loses her innocent belief that all people have the right to choose, to speak, to fight back, to demand answers. After the massacre, Diana quickly learns that questions and photos are dangerous, but ignoring the truth is unacceptable.

The unique construction of each verse drops the appropriate emotion into your lap, weighing you down as you absorb the meaning of the words and all the implications of what is happening and could happen and what did happen. For Diana, her first semester at the university in Mexico City is filled with wonder and adjustments. The cultural gap is wide, and the antiquated ideologies on human rights are frightening and bewildering to a girl from the United States. But the massacre rips the blindfold completely off, revealing the ugly truth that using your voice to protest and to question can erase you in the blink of an eye.

The recurring character of the belligerent shoe repairman who repeatedly calls Diana a puta, a whore, for no reason encapsulates the overall theme of this novel in verse. The hatred, the unwarranted judgment, the spitting and name calling all project an overall fear onto an innocuous person in a helpless way to retaliate against the unknown or what cannot be changed. Historically, many people, both protesters and bystanders, at Tlatelolco were silenced forever. But searching for the missing could prove to be just as dangerous. In this novel in verse, through photos and a refusal to forget, Diana becomes ensnared in this web of secrets as she struggles to understand and accept the unthinkable, but becoming disentangled from that web inflicts invisible wounds that may never heal.

Take a moment to brush up on the history of this violent day in 1968, and then immerse yourself in On Wings of Silence: Mexico ’68. Through the words and fluctuating structure, feel the story unfold and sense Diana’s despair at losing her naiveté but never her courage to run on silent feet to expose the veracity of that bloody day through a poignant, quickly taken photograph that fearlessly tells the truth about the day when so many voices were silenced and so many hearts were erased.

Enter the giveaway below for a chance to win a signed copy of On Wings of Silence: Mexico ’68 by Dede Fox (seriously, you need to read this) and other prizes.


Dede Fox is the 2017-2022 Poet Laureate of Montgomery, Texas. Since 2016, she has been the NEA/DOJ Artist-in-Residence at the Bryan Federal Prison Camp for Women, where she teaches creative writing. Through Houston’s Writers in the Schools, Dede also writes with hematology and oncology patients at Texas Children’s Hospital.
 
The Treasure in the Tiny Blue Tin, Dede’s first novel, was listed in the 2010 Best Jewish Books for Children and Teens. Her poetry books include Confessions of a Jewish Texan and Postcards Home. Dede’s poem “Chapultepec Park: September 25, 1968,” the catalyst for this novel, won the Christina Sergeyevna Award at the Austin International Poetry Festival.
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GIVEAWAY!  GIVEAWAY!  GIVEAWAY!
GRAND PRIZE: Signed Copy + Tee Shirt + $10 Starbucks Gift Card

SECOND PRIZE: Signed Copy of the Book

MAY 9-19, 2019
(U.S. Only)

VISIT THE OTHER GREAT BLOGS ON THE TOUR:

5/9/19 Guest Post That’s What She’s Reading
5/10/19 Review All the Ups and Downs
5/11/19 Excerpt Book Fidelity
5/12/19 Playlist StoreyBook Reviews
5/13/19 Review Forgotten Winds
5/14/19 Excerpt The Love of a Bibliophile
5/15/19 Guest Post Momma on the Rocks
5/16/19 Review Hall Ways Blog
5/17/19 Afterword Max Knight
5/18/19 Review Reading by Moonlight
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4 Replies to “Lone Star Book Blog Tour: On Wings of Silence: Mexico ’68 by Dede Fox”

  1. Ruthie, I can’t thank you enough. I’m amazed at how you bloggers capture the heart of the story with your words, something that took me 196 pages and many years. A tip of the sombrero to you and Lone Star Literary Book bloggers.