Customer Reviews

The Moths and Other Stories

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In Philadelphia, over the past summer, I happened to be in a used book store perusing the shelves for a good read. Being a student of writing, I thought after a short time, that I should look for some works by my professors at school. The first author I looked for was Helena Maria Viramontes, because the way she talks about writing is better than a lot of the stuff authors publish. She always talks in class about her novel, Under the Feet of Jesus, or her new work. All they had was a collection of short stories that I didn't remember ever having heard her talk about, called The Moths and Other Stories. I picked it up, bought it, and by the end of the day had finished reading it. What a great collection of stories it is. It's so enjoyable to read that you finish it before you would like to. I have told professor Viramontes about my finding it, and she said that she rarely thought of the collection anymore, but that she was very happy with some of the stories it contained. I was very happy with the whole book. I think you will be too.

I have to admit it. I bought this book in a rushed in-and-out at a feminist bookstore because of its gorgeous cover. To my delight, the stories within it are as complex and deviant as the painting.

Viramontes' writing is not breezy; it requires attention, especially as the book progresses.

Her subjects are not for the weak at heart. They are raw and offer no excuses or apologies for it.

The sexual ambiguity, the inminent violence, the imposing masculine presence, and the abundance of religion in the culture of Chicano women are all explored to the bone in these stories.

I highly recommend this book.

I read this for a Literature and Culture class. We were presumably to read excerpts, but I finished the book, shut in that I am. I found these stories at turns fascinating, poignant, and annoying. The Moths is a touching and true-feeling story of devotion between a dying grandmother and her granddaughter. As one reads of the narrator tenderly bathing her disoriented, cancer-gnawed grandmother, the question occurs: Is the author commenting on the selfishness of our attempts at helping others, our efforts offshoots of a feeling of "obligation" to our benefactors? Or is it a comment on the Hispanic family structure, or merely an illustration of one moment?

Growing is a bittersweet story of sisterly devotion, from the hispanic perspective. Naomi evolves from a perception of her younger sister Lucia as an onus (an escort) to a realization of her as a worthy, budding human being, all of which has for a catalyst a game of baseball played by some barrio children.

Birthday involves a young girls abortion, and is the sometimes lamentable introduction of stream of consciousness into the author's stories. Other stories become more disturbing, both in topic (The Cariboo Cafe masterfully treats the brutality of the border patrol while neighbors studies the disintegration of urban hispanic neighborhoods), while Snapshots, the story of an old woman deemed crazy for her attachment to the past, is infused with a doleful brilliance.

I have boundless respect for the technique of stream of consciousness, from Faulkner's babbling yokels to Woolf's introspective, ethereal characterizations. But it has to be done sparingly (especially these days, when the technique is old hat) and adroitly. These two stipulations are the only two for which Miss Viramontes does not answer in full on this work. Still worth your time, though.