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.
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.
