Caramelo, Or, Puro Cuento: A Novel [B1595]

2002 HCDJ 1st edition in nice clean condition. One of The Atlantic's Great American Novels of the Past 100 Years. The celebrated author of The House on Mango Street gives us another extraordinary novel, told in language of blazing originality: a multigenerational story of a Mexican-American family whose voices create a dazzling weave of humor, passion, and poignancy-the very stuff of life. Lala Reyes' grandmother is descended from a family of renowned rebozo, or shawl, makers. The striped caramelo rebozo is the most beautiful of all, and the one that makes its way, like the family history it has come to represent, into Lala's possession. The novel opens with the Reyes' annual car trip-a caravan overflowing with children, laughter, and quarrels-from Chicago to 'the other side': Mexico City. It is there, each year, that Lala hears her family's stories, separating the truth from the 'healthy lies' that have ricocheted from one generation to the next. We travel from the Mexico City that was the 'Paris of the New World' to the music-filled streets of Chicago at the dawn of the Roaring Twenties-and, finally, to Lala's own difficult adolescence in the not-quite-promised land of San Antonio, Texas.

From recent Amazon/GoodReads reviews: "This is a delightful read, embellished with such glorious details of life, love and family."; "Sandra Cisneros has written a story that could easily have been about my family or our family friends.. all of those bonus tias, tios and niños. I have never felt such familiarity in a book until I read The House on Mango Street and now, Caramelo. It has been so fun talking to my Abuelita about it because I know it resonates with her even more so. Growing up right outside of Chicago as a Mexican American is a specific kind of feeling that I haven't experienced anywhere else I've lived. I'm grateful for her writing and invoking such nostalgia- the good and the challenging. I didn't want it to end."; "I really really really enjoyed. I was concerned with the slower pace towards the beginning of the book, but I was so invested in the perspective of life that Lala brought, especially when entering Part 2, that it felt like I was watching a story weave together in real time. Like House on Mango Street, I think what Cisneros does best is blend the experience of growing, of shifting perspectives and living, with womanhood and complicated legacies of family memory in real time. She touches on issues of colorism and class, religion and love through the simple experience of growing up. The complicated legacies of love, memory, and family so prevalent in so many of our communities make this feel difficult, and honest. Poetic and patient, intentional and unapologetic. Highly recommend."