by Julia Alvarez
(New York: Algonquin, 1991)
The Garcias--Dr. Carlos (Papi), his wife Laura (Mami), and their four daughters, Carla, Sandra, Yolanda, and Sofia belong to the uppermost echelon of Spanish Caribbean society. They descend from the conquistadores. Their family compound adjoins the palacio of the dictator's daughter. The Garcia girls giggle at the sight of the dictator and his toddler grandson in matching general's uniforms. The Garcia grownups are careful not to seem to snub the neighbors (much less depose them).
So when Papi's part in a coup attempt is discovered, the family must flee. This is the chronicle of that family in exile.
Papi has to find new patients in the Bronx. Mami, far from the compound and the family retainers, must find herself. The girls try to lose themselves by ironing their hair, buying bellbottoms and fringe, forgetting their Spanish. Before Papi knows it, his "harem" has broken out in new identities that are at definite odds with the very proper Island life of maids and manicures.
For the Garcia girls, it is exhilarating and terrifying, liberating and excruciating, being betwixt and between, trying to live up to Papi's version of honor while accommodating the expectations of their American boyfriends. Little revolutionary plots evolve at home. Little stores of pot, birth control devices, explicit love letters are squirreled away. But Papi is not so easily overthrown. The boarding schools fill up with Garcia girls; the analyst's couch and divorce courts will too.
Julia Alvarez's brilliant first book of fiction sets the Garcia girls free to tell their. irrepressibly intimate stories about how they came to be at home--and not at home-in America.
Julia Alvarez left the Dominican Republic when she was ten years old. After receiving her undergraduate and graduate degrees in literature and writing, she spent twelve years teaching poetry in schools in Kentucky, California, Vermont, Washington, D.C., and Illinois. In 1986, she published her first book of poetry, Homecoming. She lives with her husband in Middlebury, Vermont, where she teaches at Middlebury College.
"Wonderfully vivid and written with rare passion and humor. Life leaps from the page."
---Hilma Wolitzer, author of In the Palomar Arms
"Julia Alvarez writes with tenderness and rue about the Caribbean world she understands so well. This is an important contribution to both American and Caribbean literature."
---Jay Parini, author of The Last Station
"This is the complex and powerfully felt story of a life that is American in the deepest sense; it has been written with stunning grace."
---David Huddle, author of The High Spirits
'Julia Alvarez gives you the privilege of visiting a family presented with such eloquence and such profound honesty you'll want to claim them as yours. Just as with any loving home, you'll want to be asked back again and again. A major achievement."
---Gloria Naylor, author of Mama Day