Right from the first, I was totally charmed by this book, and also right from the first, I realised what a slim volume I was holding in my hands, and despaired that it is just not going to last very long, and I really need to slow down and try to extend the reading experience, which was rollicking good fun from page one.
This is ostensibly about Cara Romero, a 56 year old migrant to the US from the Dominican Republic, who is now talking to a job counsellor (in 12 sessions) to learn how to find a new job. Cara had worked for a factory making little lamps, but lost the job when the factory “left to Costa Rica” (p3) in 2007 in the Great Recession. She received 53 checks after the factory closed, she tells us, then
El Obama gave me thirteen checks, then twenty more. Did he have a choice? No. [..] After these twelve weeks that I meet with you – I’ll receive no more checks! Like my neighbour, Lulu says, El Obama is good, but not God” (p3).
The novel is told in first person narrator form, and Cara’s voice is only one we hear throughout, which ensures the world is seen from Cara’s perspective and experience.
Fluent and even voluble as Cara is in English, her English is delightfully Spanish inflected, with phrases that are direct translations, as well as Spanish or even Dominican slang words thrown in without excuse or apology. “
We’re all more fat since losing our jobs. Lulu more than me (p5)
Angela had twenty-five years, Rafa had thirty-two years (p23)
Her eyes always in the mirror. The phone always in the hand (p27).
Her little exclamations, of “Uf!”, “Ay”, “Pfft!”, “pra!”, and “si Dios quierer”, “she’s very positive” (p8)
“If we looked to them wrong, cocotazo. If we cried from the cocotazo, another cocotazo! (p12)
“Two years! That’s una vida entera for a woman like me” (p18).
Good as Cara’s English is, she runs the two languages together, headlong sometimes, with some amusing results: “
The next year, I was embarrassed. Of course my mother obligate him to marry me with papers. She said, My baby will not be sin padre. […] He was sweet when I was embarrassed. Yes, embarrassed, with a baby in my stomach. The correct word is pregnant? OK, I was pregnant” (p141).
It is not just the language inferences which so strongly characterise Cara’s communications, it is her spirit, which refuses to be labelled and boxed up neatly, and overspills all boundaries with its natural effervescence. When filling in the official forms, her less than official answers are hilarious:
Education and Training
High School: The yellow house on the hill near the colmado.
Location: Calle Sin Nombre.
Year Graduated: I learned my numbers ad letters. My teachers said I was the most intelligent.
Degree Earned: Survival.” (p18)
The intriguing title of the book is beautifully explained, and becomes a theme for the suffering of the migrant Dominicanas, especially the women.
You never heard that word? You said you are dominicana. You don’t understand Spanish? Oh, just a little. OK. Desahogar: to undrown, to cry until you don’t need to cry no more. […] When Angela saw me cry, my sister said, You’re drowning in a glass of water […] Not Lulu. She understood that I had to cry until I had undrowned from the inside” (p35).
The notion of undrowning is key to this novel, because Cara’s stories of herself and her family and friends, are stories of hardship for women, and how they need to learn to undrown, to save themselves.
We learn about Cara’s life with Lulu, her friend and neighbour and dependable ally and companion, broken hearted by her feckless son, Adonis; we learn of Cara’s own heartbreak when her beloved son, Fernando, “abandons” her; we hear of her sister Angela who is not very grateful and her brother in law, Hernan, who is very close to Cara, and her brother Rafa who mistreats his wife. We learn about Cara’s background, her marriage, her troubled relationship with her mother, her closeness to several neighbours and work colleagues. She is feisty, direct, generous, caring, extremely confident, a triumphant survivor. She is probably also a tad overwhelming.
The showing and not telling method is perfectly exemplified in this novel, because although Cara Romero tells you a lot of things she thinks she is, the reader is shown a seemingly more holistic picture, enabling us to judge the veracity of what Cara says for ourselves – despite the fact Cara is our only narrator – a beautifully executed piece of literary balance. At various points in the course of the 12 counselling sessions, Cara instructs her teacher/supervisor to write things down:
“Please write that down: Cara Romero wants to work” (p13)
“Write that down: Cara Romero is strong” (p18)
“Write that down: Cara Romero is always prepared” (p27)
“Write that down: Cara Romero never shows the sausage to the pigs” (p93)
“Write that down: Cara Romero is good with the children” (p126).
“Write that down: Cara Romero is good under stress” (p144)
What she wants testified about her is curiously endearing. This is a character impossible not to warm to, like, enjoy, and sympathise with. It is of course the strength of the character which makes this novel such a delight. I thought Domininca was a great book, but this one is top class. I cannot wait for more Angie Cruz novels!
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