Book Club May 2025- The Sons of El Rey
By: Alex Espinoza
Published Year: 2024
Publisher: Simon & Schuster
Pages: 384
Summary (Provided by Goodreads): From the American Book Award–winning author comes a multi-generational epic spanning 1960s Mexico City to contemporary Los Angeles, following a family of Luchadores as they contend with forbidden love and family secrets.
Ernesto and Elena Vega arrive in Mexico City where Ernesto works on a construction site until he is discovered by a local lucha libre trainer. At a time when luchadores—Mexican wrestlers donning flamboyant masks and capes—were treated as daredevils or rockstars, Ernesto finds fame as El Rey Coyote, rapidly gaining name recognition across Mexico.
Years later, in East Los Angeles Freddy Vega is struggling to save his father’s gym while Freddy’s own son Julian is searching for professional and romantic fulfillment as a Mexican American gay man refusing to be defined by stereotypes. The once larger-than-life Ernesto Vega is now dying, leading Freddy and Julian to find their own passions and discover what really happened back in Mexico.
Told from alternating perspectives, Ernesto takes you from the ranches of Michoacán to the makeshift colonias and crowded sports arenas of Mexico City. Freddy describes life in the suburban streets of 1980s Los Angeles and the community their family built as Julian descends deep into the culture of hook-up apps, lucha burlesque shows, and the dark underbelly of West Hollywood, The Sons of El Rey is an intimate portrait of a family wading against time and legacy, yet always choosing the fight.
What I thought
I wanted to pick a book by a Mexican author since we were holding book club so close to Cinco De Mayo. Sadly, it was tough to find contemporary Mexican authors but this one sounded really interesting.
Sons of El Rey follows three generations of Mexican/Mexican-American men. Ernesto, the grandfather, was a Lucha Libre (Mexican wrestler) in Mexico. When he moved to America with his wife and son, he stopped that career, until he later opened a gym and got his son Alfredo (Freddy) into la lucha. Freddy’s son Julian, has never been into the wrestling world and works as a college professor. This story is told through each of their perspectives as Ernesto is dying, as well as some chapters from his wife Elena and his la lucha personality, El Rey Coyote.
While I really enjoyed the lucha libre part of the storyline, the format was a bit much for me. Ernesto’s perspective took place in the early years of his marriage and his start of lucha libre, while Freddy’s alternated between the present day, visiting his father, and the past when he was participating in a lucha. Julian’s mostly took place in the present but he did have occasional flashbacks. The there was this weird conversational quality between Elena and Ernesto and his alternate la lucha personality.
I found Ernesto’s storyline to be the most interesting. Freddy’s was fine. I didn’t like Julian’s at all. Unfortunately, that made it a little more annoying when I cam across his chapters. I found him to be immature and emotionally closed off. He held a lot of disdain for his father and I couldn’t quite figure out why. Freddy didn’t seem that bad to me.
Overall, I thought it was an interesting story and unlike anything I have read before. It was a little more sexually graphic than I expected. I do enjoy multi-generational stories so I liked how Espinoza dealt with the trauma of moving from one country to another and how that could impact generations down the line.
What Book Club Thought
Feels like we were mostly on the same page with this one! We all thought it was an interesting and educational read. Maybe not one we would’ve picked up on our own and maybe not even one we would think to recommend but one that we enjoyed while we were reading it. It was interesting to see how we felt differently about the different characters. Initially my least favorite storyline was Julian’s, but after some discussion I realized that Ernesto might’ve been the worst character even if I found his story interesting. It led to some decent discussion. I would recommend it is you are looking for something different to read with your book club.