The Hammon and the Beans and Other Stories

Paredes, best known for his study of Chicano folklore that was the basis for the movie The Ballad of Gregorio Cortez , writes in a voice that is direct, intimate and colloquial, engaging the reader immediately, as he does in the title story: ``Once we lived in one of my grandfather's houses near Fort Jones . . . a quiet neighborhood at least, too far from the center of town for automobiles and too near for musical, night-roaming drunks.'' Composed between 1940 and 1953, these stories are obliquely political: frequently the author uses a child's point of view to explore the themes of poverty, violence and the tension caused by acquiescing to an arbitrary authority. While Paredes succeeds at capturing the emotional essence of each story, many of them are mere sketches--the plots seem mechanical, the characters one-dimensional, the irony heavy-handed. The best pieces escape this fate, notably ``A Cold Night,'' about a boy coming to terms with death, and ``Brothers,'' in which another boy whose best friend is a German refugee confronts racism from an unlikely source. Two other stories which take place after WW II are amusing, picaresque tales involving a soldier named Johnny Picadero . Whether set in South Texas or in occupied Japan, these stories vividly convey the struggle by Mexican-Americans to hold on to their culture and dignity. (July)