Concluding Thoughts on Urrea

I found the honesty with which Urrea approached his subject matter in the afterword to be extremely moving and very unexpected. He gives a brief recount of his experiences in Rosario, his childhood, his losses in life, and his passions. He writes, "That's about it. The book is some kind of downward spiral. It starts out all full of jokes and ends in fire and poverty and death. It reflects an early fascination with escape, then deals with returning, then staying put and dealing with it, whatever it is" (145). This statement explores the adventurous tendencies of youth coupled with the sorrows and sad realizations of adulthood. The reality of hardship in Six Kinds of Sky is more grotesque than many readers might enjoy, but the value which lies in sharing this harsh reality with others is unmatched. At the end of the day, regardless of what the day has wrought, God's grace remains. His grace remains in the tragedies which could have come and yet did not, in a character's persistency, in a husband's love, and in all six of Urrea's short stories.