Locas - Softcover

Locas tells a violent and poignant story set in the heart of the rough L.A. neighborhood Echo Park. Lucia and Cecilia are the girlfriend and sister of the rising young loco whose gun trade is about to explode into the big business of drugs. When their world starts to split apart under the vicious pressure of gang warfare, Lucia seizes her chance: she builds her own private cadre of Fire Girls and rises to become a gangster in her own right. Cecilia, devastated by a miscarried pregnancy and bittersweet love for another woman, leaves the gang for the Catholic church. Yxta Maya Murray has created a richly textured story from the tragedies of Lucia and Cecilia's loves, rages, and betrayals, never once avoiding the larger tragedy of their entrapment in a feudal and dangerous world.

A rhythmic, terrifyingly raw plunge into East L.A. gang life, Locas is the story of two teenage girls, Lucia and Cecilia -- the girlfriend and sister of a rising young gangster whose gun trade is about to explode into the big business of drugs. When their world starts to split apart under the vicious pressure of gang warfare, Lucia seizes power, rising to become jefe in her own right, while Cecilia restlessly seeks meaning first in motherhood, then in a bittersweet romance with another woman. Yxta Maya Murray's first novel is a wrenching account of two very different women who are united by one thing: each must find a way to define her identity within a brutal, male-dominated world.