What does a suburban dad have in common with a professional wrestler? More than you would think. Philip Rivera’s memoir, Suburban Luchador: Memoirs from Suburbia, will show you how a normal husband and father often wears the mask of a hero.
What started as a blog five years ago blossomed into a humorous slice-of-life collection about Rivera’s life. With the support of his family, especially his wife, who allowed him to write in the few precious hours of free time while all their children were in bed, Rivera, migrant resource teacher at Lennard High School by day and masked crusader by night, was ready to share his debut novel with the larger community.
Having spent a portion of his childhood in Mexico, he grew to love Mexican culture. The idea of a suburban luchador combines the mundane aspects of suburbia with an exotic, over-the-top character, much like a popular Mexican lucha libre wrestler. From potty-training to road trips to backyard barbeque, Rivera somehow makes it seem larger than life through his honesty and imagination.
Drawing on his Christian faith and his deep love of family, Rivera said, “I tried to pull from all the different facets of my life and tie it into a clean, humorous book that ultimately celebrates fatherhood, marriage and faith. From a faith perspective, it will encourage you, from a fatherhood perspective, it will inspire you as a parent. If you don’t have kids, there’s something to connect to.”
His book has something for everyone, such as the advice to parents that for every child you have, you are allowed to be ten minutes late to church or helping a student navigate a prom predicament.
When he is not writing or teaching, you can try to catch Rivera as he travels around the country with his wife, Yarei; his 6-year-old son, Elias; and his two daughters, Selah and Analise, 4 and 2 years old respectively. This summer, it is an all-out trip to the Grand Canyon; one minivan, one tent, one month.
For more information, visit www.facebook.com/suburbanluchador/ and http://suburbanluchador.com/signup/. From there, you can head to Amazon to grab your copy of Suburban Luchador: Memoirs from Suburbia, which is available free on Amazon Prime and for $7.99 in paperback.
