The Meaning of Consuelo
A Novel
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- $17.99
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- $17.99
Publisher Description
La nina seria, the serious child. That's how Consuelo's mother has cast her pensive, book-loving daughter, while Consuelo's younger sister Mili, is seen as vivacious--a ray of tropical sunshine. Two daughters: one dark, one light; one to offer comfort and consolation, the other to charm and delight. But something is not right in this Puerto Rican family.
Set in the 1950s, a time when American influence is diluting Puerto Rico's rich island culture, Consuelo watches her own family's downward spiral. It is Consuelo who notices as her beautiful sister Mili's vivaciousness turns into mysterious bouts of hysteria and her playful invented language shift into an incomprehensible and chilling "language of birds." Ultimately Consuelo must choose: Will she fulfill the expectations of her family--offering consolation as their tragedy unfolds? Or will she risk becoming la fulana, the outsider, like the harlequin figure of her neighbor, Mario/Maria Sereno, who flaunts his tight red pedal pushers and empty brassiere as he refuses the traditional macho role of his culture.
This affecting novel is a lively celebration of Puerto Rico as well as an archetypal story of loss, the loss each of us experiences on our journey from the island of childhood to the uncharted territory of adulthood.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
A starred or boxed review indicates a book of outstanding quality. A review with a blue-tinted title indicates a book of unusual commercial interest that hasn't received a starred or boxed review.THE MEANING OF CONSUELOJudith Ortiz Cofer. Farrar, Straus & Giroux, $22 (224p) Puerto Rican novelist, essayist and poet Cofer (The Latin Deli, etc.) chronicles the childhood and young adulthood of Consuelo, a bookish girl growing up in a San Juan suburb in the 1950s. Cofer's novel is richly descriptive of the shifting mores of Puerto Rican culture and the historical particularities of the era (especially the growing American presence on the Caribbean island), but its deeper elements Consuelo's growth into maturity; her sister's developing schizophrenia; and the demise of her parents' marriage lack originality and are plagued by an overabundance of foreshadowing. Consuelo, her name signifying comfort and consolation, looks out for her younger sister, Mili, whose name derives from the word for miracle. The novel begins on a foreboding note: the local transvestite, Mar a Sereno, interrupts a casual game of catch between the girls. They scamper into the house, scolded by their mother: "We do not associate in public with people like Mar a Sereno." Life grows steadily gloomier for Consuelo: she botches her one high school romance; her beloved gay cousin, Patricio, moves to Nueva York; Mili starts acting strangely, singing to herself and speaking in tongues; and her father has an affair with a lounge singer at the hotel where he works. Cofer relies heavily on signposting, with lines like "It would be a while before we came to understand the true meaning of the word tragedia," which slow the narrative. Precise, near-sociological glimpses of island life in the 1950s the introduction of mahones, or jeans; GI loans and new housing developments; the reassuring taste of sugar cane add substance, but this is a plodding, overly deliberate effort.
