BEYOND MELODRAMA FIRST-TIME NOVELIST'S FICTION UNDERSCORED WITH PERSONAL TRUTHS.

Byline: RICK COCA Valley News Writer

For first-time novelist, Reyna Grande, the biggest criticism she heard early on studying creative writing at UC Santa Cruz, was that her prose leaned toward melodrama.

Grande, who recently read her novel, ``Across a Hundred Mountains,'' at Tia Chucha's Cafe Cultural in Sylmar, said her melodramatic bent was understandable considering she's from Mexico.

``Mexicans watch soap operas,'' Grande said with a laugh.

Grande, 30, a graduate of Franklin High School in Highland Park, eventually toned down the dramatics. As a class requirement at UC Santa Cruz, she turned in the first 80 pages of what later would become ``Across a Hundred Mountains.''

The book is about two women on personal journeys, one leaving Mexico, the other returning, whose lives become intertwined when they meet in a Tijuana jail. Although the work is fiction, the book is filled with truths taken from Grande's own life, growing up in an impoverished family in Guerrero, Mexico.

In her book, the character of Juana's father leaves his family for the United States, so he can earn enough money to return home and build his family a house, something Grande's father did when she was 5-years-old.

Grande's mother followed him a year later, leaving Grande and her siblings with her grandmother. By the time she came to the United States four years later, Grande's parents were divorced.

She has no memory of her parents ever living together. And when she arrived in the United States, she lived with her father, and although her mother was just 20 minutes away, she only saw her once or twice a month.

Those were difficult days for the future writer.

``I think the one thing that is always going be there, is the loss of the parent,'' Grande said. ``(That's) the one thing that scarred me in my life.''

Grande said those childhood experiences reverberate in her writing.

``Even in my new novel, that's the same thing I'm writing about now,'' Grande said. ``A character doesn't have a good relationship with a parent.''

Today, Grande, is the parent of 4-year-old son, Nathaniel. She said reading her novel in front of an audience is a far cry from reading bedtime stories to her son.

``It seems like a strange thing, to stand in front of people and read to (them),'' Grande said.

While attending celebrated author Sandra Cisneros' reading at Tia Chucha's earlier in the year, Grande said she learned a valuable lesson.

``What I took from her was just be yourself,'' Grande said. ``Just speak from your heart and people will enjoy the reading.''

In that vain, Grande said she enjoys the Q & A sessions at her appearance.

``People ask personal questions, and I answer them. And people enjoy the honesty.''

Grande has done several readings in and around Los Angeles and the Southwestern United States. The novel has received an ``exceptional'' review from Publisher's Weekly and will be required reading this fall for students enrolled in freshman English classes at UC Santa Cruz.

Not bad for a woman whose writing was once considered melodramatic.

Grande's delighted that her book will be read at her Alma mater. More so because she thinks in light of the recent immigration debate, her voice might offer students a different perspective.

``It feels really good because I think that it's a good book for a class, especially students that are from other cultures and other backgrounds because it really gives them insight into another kind of life.''

For more information on ``Across a Hundred Mountains'' and author Reyna Grande, go to www.reyna

grande.com. For information on Tia Chucha's Cafe Cultural, go to www.tiachucha.com, or call [phone].

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Reyna Grande hopes people who read ``Across a Hundred Mountains'' gain insight into the immigrant experience.

Ibarionex Perello/Special to the Valley News