A Place Where the Sea Remembers [Hardcover]

Sandra Benitez (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: September 1, 1993

A flower-seller and a salad-maker think they have finally been blessed with the child they have always wanted until the imminent birth begets tragedy for their Mexican village, in a novel about everyday life south of the border.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Latina writer Benitez begins her excellent debut novel with a painful event--the wait for a drowned body to float to shore--and works backwards, retracing the myriad, seemingly insignificant steps that led to the character's death. As in Like Water for Chocolate , this novel sympathetically explores the lives of Mexican women caught in a mystical, fatalistic world. Chayo, a flower seller, and her sister Marta, a chambermaid, live in a poverty-stricken village by the sea. When 15-year-old Marta is raped and becomes pregnant, seemingly barren Chayo and her husband, Candelario, agree to take the child. Soon after, however, Chayo discovers that she too is expectant and reneges on the promise. Livid, Marta arranges with el brujo , the witch doctor, to put a curse on her sister's child. Both women bear sons, and a remorseful Marta tells her sister about the curse, which she claims to have had removed by la curandera , the healer. But when Chayo's son almost dies after being bitten by fire ants, the sisters' relationship once more deteriorates and, inexorably, the tragedy presaged in the book's opening chapter comes to pass. Benitez's unsparing vision into the stark realities of village residents' lives offers a poignant counterpoint to superficial vacation snapshots of Mexico.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.

From School Library Journal

YA-In the small Mexican town of Santiago, childless Chayo and her husband find their prayers answered when they agree to adopt the unborn child of Marta, Chayo's sister. When Chayo becomes pregnant and they change their mind about adoption, Marta has a witch doctor put a curse on Chayo's unborn baby, setting in motion a series of tragic events. Characters, presented individually by the author and then woven together by plot, attach themselves to readers' sensibilities, and lull them into believing in the goodness of life in this sleepy seaside community. However, all this cultural richness is poised for tragedy when divine retribution takes over.
Ginny Ryder, Lee High School, Fairfax County, VA
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 160 pages
• Publisher: Coffee House Press; 1st edition (September 1, 1993)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 156689011X
• ISBN-13: 978-1566890113
• Product Dimensions: 8.5 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
• Shipping Weight: 11.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 3.9 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (15 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #305,020 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
  • #70 in Books > Literature & Fiction > United States > Hispanic

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 10 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars As powerful as Steinbeck, February 24, 2001

By 

dikybabe "admeyer" (Houston, TX United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: A Place Where the Sea Remembers (Scribner's Paperback Fiction) (Paperback)

Anyone having read Steinbeck's The Pearl recalls the power of poverty and the simple life of its characters who are pulled into ironic tragedy. So, one considers the native citizenry of Benitez's Mexican tourist village of Santiago, impoverished in the main, and subject to a cruel fate. What is especially potent in this very readable short book is the manner in which Benitez interweaves her characters with their diverse problems and needs into one another's lives. Remedios' presence as the curandero sets the tone; these lives are fated to face life head on, just as the forces of nature ebb and flow. Their fates are an integral part of nature itself.

Since its publication in 1993, I have used Benitez' book as a springboard for multicultural reading for my senior English students. I still recommend it for use with other students. I emphatically recommend it to any reader.

5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An Amazing Novel to say the very least!, April 7, 2000

By A Customer

This review is from: A Place Where the Sea Remembers (Scribner's Paperback Fiction) (Paperback)

I read this book for a college lit course and loved it. It was an amazing tale that I had first thought was a collection of short stories. Benitez wove the stories together in the end for a thrilling ending. I was fortunate enough to meet and hear Benitez speak at my college. She had my attention for the entire hour that she spoke. I really loved this novel.

7 of 8 people found the following review helpful:

4.0 out of 5 stars Gentle, too gentle..., May 29, 1999

By 

Mark Valentine (Port Angeles, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Place Where the Sea Remembers (Scribner's Paperback Fiction) (Paperback)

I found that in reading Ms. Benitez' first novel that I was being lulled into a gentle portrait of the interconnectedness of the people of the village of Santiago and I enjoyed that, most of the time. At other times, I felt that the author, in the name of verisimilitude, strove to re-create the village life so much that it got in the way of the truth of the story. Remedios, the central character, was under-developed as a shamanness--that is, I wanted to see her power over the lives of the other characters WHEN THEIR STORIES WERE BEING TOLD. Instead, she was just an intercalary effect.

But really, these are small criticisms. It was refreshing to read a novel where each character was treated with their own dignity.