For me this did not seriously affect my ability to follow the story or understand the nuances of the Mexican characters. The text, particularly the sections set in Mexico, is liberally sprinkled with Spanish and Mexican dialect words and phrases, and while many are translated or partially explained afterwards, many are not. Those who like to understand every word of a novel will find this a frustrating reading experience if, like me, they have never been taught Spanish. Cisneros is a poet who is not as well known on this side of the Atlantic. I enjoyed this Mexican-American family story rather more than I expected to, so thanks to the 21st Century Literature group for selecting it for a group read. 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. 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.Ĭaramelo is a romantic tale of homelands, sometimes real, sometimes imagined. 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. 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. 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. Lala Reyes' grandmother is descended from a family of renowned rebozo, or shawl, makers. The 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.
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