General consensus on House of Broken Angels - powerful, abundant, in need of editing

Small book group last night for discussion of Luis Alberto Urrea's novel The House of Broken Angels; unsurprisingly, there was general consensus. All had great admiration for the plenitude of this novel - many strong characters, witty and sometimes evocative writing, great examination of the history over 3 or 4 generations of an immigrant family (not all concurred w/ my thought that every American has the material at hand to write a similar family saga - the experience of struggle and eventual assimilation is near-universal in this country - it's not just a story about Mexican-Americans but about all Americans). As JoRi noted, this is anything but a "pity-party,", that is, it's not, as one might have suspected in picking up this novel, an account of struggles and suffering and overcoming prejudice and hatred; it's a novel about aspiration and success (as well as the above struggles), a heart-warming family saga. All that said, JoRi also said she struggled to finish the novel (not sure if she actually did finish), as there were so many people and events, especially in the 3rd section, Big Angel's b-d party, that you just feel overwhelmed, and that a good editor would have  told him when to cut back and when to be more clear (in particular, it's almost impossible to know whether one of the characters did or did not kill someone). We were greatly helped in the discussion by the family tree that M put together - but even in doing so there were still points of confusion and omissions, further evidence that it's almost impossible to hold the entire novel in one's mind while - or just after - reading (or even re-reading) it. Is that bad? We could say the same thing about Ulysses or 100 Years of Solitude. And it's also possible, as I have noted, that the confusion and super-abundance is part of Urrea's literary strategy - making us feel that we, like the many cousins, about part of this big celebration and, like the characters themselves, trying to figure out who's who. All that said, I have to agree w/ JoRi that there's just too much material here, some of it left half-baked, and the novel could have been that much better w/ greater editorial guidance. Also: We never could quite figure out the significance of the title; we've got 2 Angels, but who's broken?