Books › Under the feet of Jesus
Under the feet of Jesus
First published 1995 · 180 pages
A lyrical, sun-baked awakening of a young woman discovering her own fierce power amidst the brutal realities of migrant labor.
What it feels like
Reading this novel feels like standing in the blistering heat of a California valley—oppressive, vividly real, yet undeniably beautiful. The narrative moves with a steady, deliberate rhythm, mirroring the grueling, repetitive labor of the fields while slowly building an undercurrent of fierce, undeniable urgency. Viramontes’s prose is deeply sensory and poetic, elevating the dust, sweat, and aching muscles of migrant workers into something profoundly sacred. It is a mood of tender resilience wrapped in systemic dread, where moments of first love and familial devotion bloom in the harshest conditions. This book will deeply resonate with readers who crave socially conscious, lyrical fiction that traces a young woman's journey from invisible vulnerability to a towering, defiant reclamation of her own power.
- Mood
- sun-baked
- oppressive
- tender
- earthy
- Tone
- reverent
- unflinching
- empathetic
- lyrical
- Pace
- steady
- Themes
- coming of age in the margins · the brutal cost of invisible labor · awakening of personal power · family resilience · environmental injustice
- The writing
- Lyrical, deeply sensory, and rich with metaphor, grounding spiritual weight in the dust and sweat of the earth.
- The arc
- Moves from a place of marginalized vulnerability and confusion to a fierce, defiant awakening of self-worth and agency.
- Who it's for
- Readers who appreciate poetic, socially conscious literary fiction that centers marginalized voices and deeply felt coming-of-age journeys.
Content notes
- poverty
- pesticide poisoning
- child labor
- systemic racism
- medical neglect
About the book
At the center of this powerful tale is Estrella, a girl about to cross over the perilous border to womanhood.
What she knows of life comes from her mother, who has survived abandonment by her husband in a land that treats her as if she were invisible, even though she and her children pick the crops of the farms that feed its people...from the aging but iron-bodied man who reluctantly becomes the head of the family, even as dreams of his youth in Mexico are calling him home...and from the endless highways and vast fields of California, where they travel and work together. But within Estrella, seeds of growth and change are stirring. And in the arms of Alejo, only a few years older than herself, they burst into full fierce flower, as she tastes the joy and pain of first love. Estrella begins to listen to her own inner voice in giving herself to that love. She comes to learn the value of life and discovers her own power to defy a system that would otherwise keep her down.
Pushed to the margins of society, she learns to fight back and is able to help the young farmworker she loves when his ambitions and very life are threatened in a harvest of death.
Infused with the beauty of the California landscape and shifting splendors of the passing seasons juxtaposed with the bleakness of poverty, this vividly imagined novel, so observant and full of wisdom, is worthy of the people it celebrates and whose story it tells so magnificently. The simple lyrical beauty of Viramontes's prose, her haunting use of image and metaphor, and the urgency of her themes all announce Under the Feet of Jesus as a landmark work of American fiction.
Description from Open Library.
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