Caramelo, Or, Puro Cuento: A NovelThe celebrated author of The House on Mango Street gives us an extraordinary new 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. Caramelo is a romantic tale of homelands, sometimes real, sometimes imagined. Vivid, funny, intimate, historical, it is a brilliant work destined to become a classic: a major new novel from one of our country’s most beloved storytellers. |
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Common terms and phrases
Acapulco Antonieta Araceli Aunty Light-Skin Awful Grandmother beautiful body boys brothers Candelaria Celaya chairs Chicago courtyard dance dark door dress Enrique Ernesto everything Exaltación eyes face Father says feel forget funkadelics girl Grandmother's hair hands head hear heart hell inside Juchi kids kiss kitchen La familia Burrón La-Z-Boy Lala Lalita laugh Leandro Valle Little Grandfather live Lolo look Mamá María María Sabina married Maxwell Street Memo Mexican Mexico City Mother says mouth movie Narciso Reyes never night Pedro Infante Petenera Pine-Sol Rafa Regina remember Señor Wences shoes shouts sleep smell Soledad Soledad Reyes someone Spanish story sweet talk tamales Tarzán telenovela tell there's things thought Tongolele tortillas Uncle Baby Uncle Fat-Face Virgen de Guadalupe Viva walk watch wearing What's woman Zócalo Zoila
References to this book
Brown on Brown: Chicano/a Representations of Gender, Sexuality, and Ethnicity Frederick Luis Aldama No preview available - 2009 |