Buried Onions

Buried Onions (1996), by Gary Soto, is a heart-wrenching slice-of-life, stream-of-consciousness novel that allows us to peer into the lifestyles available to young men growing up on the poverty-stricken and predominately Mexican-American south side of Fresno, California.

The novel guides us through several weeks in the life of Eddie, a nineteen-year-old Mexican American and the narrator of this first-person story. Eddie strives to be responsible, is mostly honest, and attempts gamely to understand the world around him in a way that allows him to continue on for another day. Street-savvy yet unprepared to fully make his own way, Eddie’s future in Fresno is portrayed as bleak.

When we meet Eddie, he is living alone and has recently dropped out of the local community college, where he had been studying air conditioning. His mom has moved to Merced, an hour away, while Eddie stays on in Fresno, with a few minimally-helpful friends and relatives left around him. His apartment is small, stark, and roach-infested. The fridge and its container of ice water, together with the swamp cooler, are the apartment’s prominent features. There also is a small garage where Eddie keeps his bicycle, his primary mode of transportation.