ABOUT THIS BOOK
Approaching midlife, after rising to comfortable suburban life, Edgar Bonjour becomes involved with a drug-trafficking Puerto Rican motorcycle gang from his old neighborhood and is brought down by an affair with a woman in the gang. News of his murder leads to introspection among other members of the Puerto Rican Bonjour clan, all descended from three now nameless French brothers remembered only by their surname. Though extended generations of the Bonjours dispersed, some settling in New York, they remain connected by the shared lore of their ancestry, that starting with the three original Bonjour brothers—all rampant adulterers—every descendent Bonjour male carries a reckless, womanizing gene.

REVIEWS

"Most families are complicated, but the French-originating, Puerto Rican, USA-bound Bonjours, with their inclination to father children both in and out of wedlock, are maybe the most complicated of all. . . . The ‘bloodline,’ as J. A. Marzán terms it, flings Bonjours out across the island of Puerto Rico and up into North America, but then it reels them back—to the fathers, to the source, to the family."—from the introduction by David Huddle

"Marzán sets a new standard for Latino fiction."— Lisa Paravisini, Vassar College

"That in Puerto Rico everyone is somehow related, that if you search a little under the plantain leaves, the stranger you meet in the street will turn out to be your blood cousin—this idea, in essence, is the impetus for Marzán’s novel and the inspiration behind its title. Writing in a style that combines poetic nuances with humorous touches, Marzán adds a new dimension to our understanding of what it is to be a Latino today. The ‘bonjour gene’ he evokes is a positive gene, a gene on the verge of a new day."—Rosario Ferre, author of Papeles de Pandora

TABLE OF CONTENTS

Acknowledgments
Narrative Structure and Family Complication:
An Introduction to J. A. Marzán’s The Bonjour Gene,
by David Huddle
Prologue
B-Movie
The Bonjour Gene
Tying the Knot
What We Should Know about the Climb to Heaven
Unforgettable Tangos, Indelible Pagodas
Cappuccino
Zaxxon
The Ride
PC
The Duck
The Flowering of Isabel
The Inheritance

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