Soledad [Hardcover]

Angie Cruz (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: August 7, 2001

Tia Gorda has always claimed Soledad was born con la pata caliente -- with feet burning to be anywhere but here. In truth, Soledad couldn't wait to get beyond the stifling confines of West 164th Street, away from her superstitious, contentious family with their endless tragedies and petty fights; from the leering men with their potbellies, the slick-skinned teen girls with their raunchy mouths and snapping gum. At eighteen, Soledad couldn't get away from the volume and the violence of the barrio some call Dominican Heights fast enough. Two years later, an art student at Cooper Union with a gallery job and a hip East Village walk-up, Soledad feels eminently cool and infinitely far from the neighborhood where she grew up.

But when Gorda calls with the news that Olivia, Soledad's mother, has lapsed into an emotional coma, Soledad knows she hasn't escaped la familia. Gorda insists Soledad's return is the only thing that will cure Olivia. Fighting the memories of the life she's left -- the broken hydrants on littered corners, her jealous cousin Flaca, her bizarre mother and, curiously, images of her mother's Dominican youth -- Soledad returns home to Washington Heights. Her journey has only begun. As Soledad tries to salvage her damaged relationship with Olivia, tame Flaca's raucous behavior, tolerate her zany Tia Gorda and resist falling for Richie, a soulful, intense man from the neighborhood, she also faces the greatest challenge of her life: confronting the ghosts from her mother's past.

Rich, evocative and wise, "Soledad" is a wondrous story of culture and chaos, of family and integrity, myth and mysticism. Angie Cruz is a dazzling new voice, a Latina literary light whosepassionate debut in "Soledad" surely marks the beginning of a remarkable career.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

To write the definitive novel of a New York neighborhood can be to strike literary gold just ask Jonathan Lethem. Washington Heights native and Dominican activist Cruz stakes a clumsy claim to the area with this overwrought first effort. Soledad, a talented young artist on scholarship at Cooper Union, has finally escaped 164th Street for a downtown apartment. When she is called back home for the summer to care for her widowed mother, Olivia, who has fallen into a psychosomatic coma, she is forced to confront the family secrets behind her father's death and her strained relationship with Olivia. Much of the novel is told from the point of view of Soledad's female relatives: her aunt Gorda, a "bruja" (witch) who treats her sister's ailments with home remedies and ceremonies; her cousin, Flaca, a fiery adolescent whose rivalry with Soledad is the main subplot; and Olivia herself, in italicized dream narration and flashbacks. These characters are more interesting than Soledad, a standard-issue "caught between two worlds" heroine, but they are hardly three-dimensional. While Cruz sometimes captures fresh details of behavior and the rhythms of Dominican neighborhood life, she rarely lets them work alone, opting to tell rather than show her characters' psychology in passages that read like particularly banal therapy sessions. The narrative is peppered with cliches: "[W]hen a woman says no, if [men] see a glimpse of flirting or lips that are smiling, no echoes yes, yes if you try hard enough you will get me." Gorda's homespun mysticism is fascinating at first, but by the end it becomes heavy-handed as Cruz strives for a lyrical catharsis she hasn't earned. Readers enticed by a lengthy blurb from Junot Diaz will be disappointed by a melodramatic plot and stale prose. Agent, Ellen Levine.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal

This first novel from Cruz a native of Washington Heights in Manhattan adeptly transcends all the tired and hackneyed classifications of what is now commonly known as the "immigrant experience." Sidestepping the approach of using the novel as a guide for taking readers on a sightseeing tour of how the "other half" lives, Cruz instead chooses to probe the complex inner lives of a first- and second -generation Dominican family living in Washington Heights. The story begins when Soledad, an aspiring young artist, reluctantly returns home from her life in the East Village when her mother, Olivia, falls mentally ill. In the ensuing events, we meet Gorda, Soledad's caring yet superstitious aunt; Flaca, Gorda's rebellious teenage daughter; and Victor, Gorda and Olivia's philandering brother who falls in love in spite of himself. These are only a few of the memorable characters compassionately evoked in a story of people coming to terms with the suffering and disappointment of life. Unfortunately, there are moments when the story falters, as Cruz's decision to narrate using a myriad character voices is not always successful or believable. Nonetheless, she remains an astute witness to the hopes, dreams, fears, and frustrations of all humans. While by no means great, this is a promising debut from an author to keep an eye on. For most fiction collections. "Library Journal"
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Hardcover: 240 pages
• Publisher: Simon & Schuster; First Edition. 1 in number line edition (August 7, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0743212010
• ISBN-13: 978-0743212014
• Product Dimensions: 8.8 x 5.8 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.5 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.1 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,278,920 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

31 of 31 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Had a great time reading this book, May 20, 2003

By 

Paul and Sally (AZ, USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Soledad (Hardcover)

Loved this book! Loved the passion and the loyalty in which the family and neighbors have for each other. Also,the beautiful struggle to live and to love, fight and to dream. Soledad's journey is a great read. I laughed and cried, got a little wiser from the advice of the
viejo's(the old ones). This book would not have been the same without the spanglish. I will miss these people, they were my crazy familia for a few enjoyable hours. Thank you Angie Cruz...can't wait to read your next novel. I highly recommend this book to latina's everywhere.

22 of 22 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Exuberant Debut, September 10, 2003

By 

Alan Cambeira "author of Azucar's Trilogy" (Dominican Republic, author of Tattered Paradise...Azucar's Trilogy Ends) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Soledad: A Novel (Paperback)

I thoroughly disagree with those reviewers of Angie Cruz's debut novel who perhaps smugly dismiss her work as being "a total mess," or "not enough story." One reviewer boldly proclaimed that Cruz "is no Gabriel Garcia Marquez." Well, really now!! Even to suggest that an initiate in the daunting art of this lofty genre must somehow (miraculously) immediately measure up to the accomplished mastery of a seasoned novelist of the rank and distinction of the Nobel Prize-winning Colombian writer Garcia Marquez or perhaps of the caliber of Chilean Isabel Allende is unreasonable at best. After all, these two writers par excellence eventually mastered their respective literary craft only after long years of painstakingly honing a (self-satisfying) writing style and ultimate artistry. Even skilled writers don't exactly tumble out of the womb being able to compose beautiful prose or poetry.

So, Angie Cruz joins the growing cadre of young, gifted writers such as Nelly Rosario and Loida Maritza Perez and others who, in time, will indeed garner the accolades and wider readership that Danticat, Alvarez, Conde, Junot Diaz, Esmeralda Santiago, and yes, Allende currently enjoy. Just give her time. Angie Cruz unquestionably knows the heart and soul of Washington Heights in upper Manhattan, home to thousands of dominicanos. She feels vividly the pulse and pace of these streets and the people there. Soledad's traumatic journey (an escape, actually) to downtown is memorable and quite believable. This is a provocative story, told with imaginative grace and power. All the characters are beautifully realized. Any suggestion of "a disorganized plot" is artistically and cleverly interwoven into the realistic, yet disorganized lives of the people who struggle to survive the harshness and ugliness of those mean streets. Y es facil, Ms Cruz?
Highly Recommended Reading!

Alan Cambeira
Author of AZUCAR! The Story of Sugar (a novel)

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Latina's determination, May 19, 2004

By 

"moon_angel15" (Mason, OH United States) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Soledad: A Novel (Paperback)

At first I was attracted to this book for it's cover, but then i read it's tittle "Soledad" which means loneliness, and i thought maybe this book will keep me conected to my roots, and it did.
The story about a girl that wants a different future than everybody else, she wants to separate herself from what she has known all her life, to explore new paths that may take her far away.
Once she takes a new path she is forced to come back to take care of her mom who has checked out of the world. Soledad finds herself back in a place she longed to leave, she finds people she wanted to forget, but they all have something different to show her. Back in the old neighborhood she finds love where least expected, and at the end she realizes that everything she was looking for was always right in front of her.

I recomend this book to people who want to learn about a part of Latin cultures in the US.