A Shell for Angela

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

This tale of a woman's decision to reclaim her Mexican heritage includes vivid details of a Mexican-American childhood in California-the special foods prepared for New Year's Day, the sad squalor of a migrant workers' camp-yet fails to rise above its flaws to become the moving drama the author clearly hoped for. Part of the problem is stylistic; as Lachtman's (Campfire Dreams) first novel for adults, Angela retains too much of the adjective-heavy oversimplification many writers reserve for young readers. And the structure that juxtaposes reports of the adult Angela driving toward Mexico on a vague personal journey with narrative from each period of her earlier life tends to slow the dramatic possibilities. With the omniscient narrator dipping into nearly every character's point of view, the result is a jumble of impassioned desires too tidily resolved at the end. Lachtman overcomes these problems in a few well-wrought scenes-such as the child Angela's observation of immigration officials taking her father into custody-yet these scenes are too few to give the novel more than sociological significance. (Mar.)

Library Journal

The University of Houston's Arte Pblico Press reconfirms its niche as a major publisher of Hispanic American works by introducing readers to these four new novels by Latinas. Both Ambert and Espinosa explore abusephysical, sexual, emotionalas metaphors for women's subjugation and degradation. Ambert's A Perfect Silence examines the case of Blanca, a young Puerto Rican whose life alternates between Puerto Rico and New York; she endeavors to escape poverty and abuse through education, only to find that the price is madness. Chilean-born Adrianne, of Espinosa's Dark Plums, goes from nearly nonstop casual sexual encounters with men and women to brutal prostitution but ultimately, like Blanca, emerges with a whole, if bruised, identity. Lachtman's more traditional novel examines the life of Angela Martn/Angela Raines. At the age of nine, living in the barrio of Depression-era Los Angeles, Angela agonizingly learns that it is a crime to be Mexican as she witnesses her adored father's unjust beating and arrest by immigration authorities. Twenty-year-old Angela formally rejects her Mexican heritage as she marries an Anglo and becomes a perfect suburban housewife. Thirty years later, with a reprieve from cancer, Angela finally attempts to heal the wounds that bifurcate her two lives. Rivera's African Passions is a collection of eight interwoven stories about passionate Cuban American women. Recurring characters, family relationships, and the Jersey City Hispanic barrio connect the stories, as does Rivera's delicious sense of humor. These first novels are all appropriate for Latino and women's literature collections in academic and large public libraries.Mary Margaret Benson, Linfield Coll. Lib., McMinnville, Ore.