By Kathleen Alcalá; Harcourt Brace & Company; @ 1998; 180 pages

This novel was a nice diversion. And what a tear jerker! Oh my goodness. I was so sad to see our main character, Concha, leave the Sonoran desert. Here’s a nice description of her homeland as told by the last female narrator in the book:

I realized that I missed the intense light of the Sonoran Desert—light unaccompanied by a proximity to water. The light in Sonora reduced every item on which it fell to its elemental self—light and dark, substance and shadow, reflection and absorption.”

Concha, a young girl from the now extinct Opata tribe, is forced to flee with her family from their tribal lands in the Sonoran desert of Mexico. She left everything behind, even her real name. The story follows her journey to Tucson, Arizona, and the course of her life and also the first part of her daughter Rosa’s young adult life. This is the story of their “legacy of dislocation.”

Kathleen Alcalá creates a interesting structure for this novel. The point of view changes several times and for several reasons throughout the book. I found it interesting and risky, but it works. I loved every section of this book. I was so involved with the characters. There were elements of magical realism sprinkled around in various places that I just love anyway.

Alcalá uses Spanish to make many of her main points. If you don’t speak Spanish, get out your dictionary or you’ll miss some things. There were only a few words I didn’t know, so I got a kick out of it. But for non-Spanish-speaking readers, I’m not sure the context is enough to give the meaning of the Spanish words.

I definitely want to read more from this author. She also wrote Spirits of the Ordinary.

Here is a quote from the beginning of the book I found interesting, and it seems to directly relate to the relationship between Concha and Rosa:

Amid those internal changes
Your skull fills with a new life,
and instead of thoughts, has flowers.”

Manual Acuña, from “Before a Corpse”

*****

Y en medio de esos cambios interiores
tu cráneo lleno de una nueva vida,
en vez de pensamientos dará flores.”

Manual Acuña, de “Ante un cadaver”

I think it’s prettier in Spanish.