Only Once in a Lifetime
By Alejandro Grattan
Reviewed by Emerson Draisey

      In 1940, Francisco Obregon, a homeless waif in the Mexican fishing village of Ajijic, meets an American who will forever change his life. Adrian Grant, a Hollywood screenwriter, has come to Mexico, along with his wife, to try his hand at writing a novel. Francisco becomes their guide, his resource-fulness helping to steer them through a maze of pitfalls.
      Ten-year-old Francisco is almost painfully real as the reader follows his footsteps down the early path to hardship, denial and loss, the only way of life he has ever known. You believe in Francisco and his desperate struggle, just as Adrian Grant does, because you believe in yourself and the human heart—for without faith in their worth, our purpose is no greater than animate matter scratching for survival.
      As Francisco grows to manhood, he decides on the life of a painter. With a wife, and full of the kind of hope only the very young can possess, Francisco’s odyssey takes him to Los Angeles, there to suffer unspeakable emotional loss, and great disillu-sionment.
      Finally, having wrestled with the age-old question of whether life is worth living to its natural end, Francisco secretly makes plans for his “departure”—but first he must find a good home for his aged dog, who has been his sole companion. However, over what he thinks will be his last 24 hours, he experiences more adventures in one day than he has had over the past 15 years. He also meets a woman going through her own crisis—and together they find something they thought comes “only once in a lifetime.”
      The author—having doled out disaster and defeat to his protagonist—eventually gives us a deeply poignant finale. Neither glowing adjective nor heartwarming cliché suffice to adequately describe the cathartic effect of this novel. The reader comes away with renewed faith in the human condition—and because of the novel’s indelible characters and unforgettable story, a deeper appreciation of life itself.
      (A book-signing party of this most recent and revised edition of the original novel is scheduled for May 9th at 3PM at the Nueva Posada. Refreshments will be served. Everyone is welcome!)