From Publishers Weekly
In these lyrical prose passages, Mexican American women of San Antonio, Tex., muse on their loyalty to Mexico, their lovers and their sense of self-worth. Author tour. Copyright 1992 Reed Business Information, Inc.


From Library Journal
In this collection of Mexican-American stories, Cisneros addresses the reader in a voice that is alternately buoyant, strong, funny, and sad. The brief vignettes of the opening piece, "My Lucy Friend Who Smells Like Corn," are tiles in a mosaic. Taken together, these vignettes give a vivid, colorful picture of life on the Texas/Mexico border. Family ties are strong: aunts, uncles, cousins, grandparents are all present. The stories are often about the romantic dreams of young girls longing to escape stifling small-town life who discover that things are not much different on the other side of the border. Cisneros has an acute eye for the telling detail that reveals the secrets and the dreams of her characters. She writes with humor and love about people she knows intimately.- Marcia Tager, Tenafly, N.J.Copyright 1991 Reed Business Information, Inc.


Book Description
A collection of stories, whose characters give voice to the vibrant and varied life on both sides of the Mexican border. The women in these stories offer tales of pure discovery, filled with moments of infinite and intimate wisdom.


From the Inside Flap
A collection of stories, whose characters give voice to the vibrant and varied life on both sides of the Mexican border. The women in these stories offer tales of pure discovery, filled with moments of infinite and intimate wisdom.


About the Author
Sandra Cisneros was born in Chicago in 1954. Internationally acclaimed for her poetry and fiction, she has been the recipient of numerous awards, including the Lannan Literary Award and the American Book Award, and of fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts and the MacArthur Foundation. Cisneros is the author of the novels The House on Mango Street and Caramelo, a collection of short stories Woman Hollering Creek, a book of poetry Loose Woman, and a children's book Hairs/Pelitos. She lives in San Antonio, Texas.

ANNOTATION

From the author of the widely acclaimed The House on Mango Street comes a story collection of breathtaking range and authority, whose characters give voice to the vibrant and varied life on both sides of the Mexican border. The women in these stories offer tales of pure discovery, filled with moments of infinite and intimate wisdom.

FROM THE PUBLISHER

A collection of stories, whose characters give voice to the vibrant and varied life on both sides of the Mexican border. The women in these stories offer tales of pure discovery, filled with moments of infinite and intimate wisdom.

FROM THE CRITICS

Publishers Weekly

Ranging from prose lyrics of less than a page to much lengthier (but still lyrical) fictions, these stories are eloquent testimonials to the status of Mexican-American women. Cisneros ( The House on Mango Street ) introduces a cast of Chicanas from the environs of San Antonio, Tex., letting us eavesdrop on a series of interior monologues as well crafted as they are expressive. She begins with the self-conscious yet spontaneous effusions of young girls (``You laughing something into my ear that tickles, and me going Ha Ha Ha Ha''), then turns to preadolescents and young women; her speakers evince a shared, uneasy awareness that their self-worth depends on a loyalty to Mexico strained, all the same, by the realities of their lives up North. The restless vamp of ``Never Marry a Mexican'' feels ``ridiculous'' as ``a Mexican girl who couldn't even speak Spanish,'' and cultivates a contempt for her white lover (``nude as a pearl. You've lost your train of smoke'') and his wife (``alive under the flannel and down, and smelling like milk and hand cream'')--but she is not sure just what she is envying. In this sensitively structured suite of sketches, however, Cisneros's irony defers to her powers of observation, so that feminism and cultural imperialism, while important issues here, do not overwhelm the narrative. Author tour. (Apr.)

Library Journal