false http://photo.goodreads.com/books/1170357643m/49144.jpg 49144 5 Ana Castillo's voice is one of self-confident, hypnotic melancholy. <I>Peel My Love Like an Onion</I>, her fifth book, often reads like a diary rather than a novel--full of dashed-off midnight eloquence but unformed. It's the story of Carmen Santos, a flamenco dancer whose right leg is shriveled from polio. Her family moved from Mexico to Chicago before she was born: "My first language was Spanish but I am not really Mexican. I guess I am Chicago-Mexican." Castillo sees the immigrant experience as a minefield of ironies. Carmen works at the Domino's in the airport as a way of being a productive American, thus gaining her father's respect. One morning on a "power walk" she realizes that the shoes she is wearing may have been made in a sweatshop by some distant relative from "somewhere... very foreign, like seaweed-and-black-fungus-in-French-Vietnamese-soup foreign."<p> As the book moves back and forth between Carmen's dreams of economic and emotional freedom and her erotic life (in which passion often feels as much like a trap as a release), Castillo's fluid style often lapses into carelessness. And there is a blurred quality to many of the images, like photographs taken from a moving car. Carmen's story is most engaging when she experiences isolated moments of independence: flamenco dancing, for instance, for the customers at a hair salon where she is working, dragging her bad leg around in front of the ladies under the hair dryers. The scene--a moment to relish--is almost heroic in its defiance of the exhausted world. <I>--Emily White</I> 2411752 1999 Peel My Love Like an Onion: A Novel total:260|5:70|4:91|3:81|2:16|1:2| 260 991 356 31 5 1 false false Sun Feb 08 05:05:27 -0800 2009 Mon Mar 30 09:46:59 -0700 2009 more...]]> 3 0 true false Wed Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2008 Sat Oct 18 12:13:26 -0700 2008 Sat Oct 18 12:17:49 -0700 2008
Chicago native Ana Castillo will not disappoint you. She knows this city and can kindle the spirit of the early Chicanos that lived where the University of Illinois at Chicago houses its campus, a controversial area often defined as East Pilsen, University Village or whatever is the newl...more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed May 21 10:26:52 -0700 2008 Thu Nov 08 13:23:08 -0800 2007 Wed May 21 10:26:52 -0700 2008 more...]]> 4 0 false false Sat Nov 15 21:36:53 -0800 2008 Tue Oct 21 11:53:45 -0700 2008 Sat Nov 15 21:36:53 -0800 2008 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Feb 01 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Wed Jan 21 10:01:52 -0800 2009 Sun Feb 08 05:49:04 -0800 2009 more...]]> 3 0 false false Wed Nov 04 00:00:00 -0800 2009 Tue Nov 03 11:45:23 -0800 2009 Thu Nov 05 07:24:05 -0800 2009 more...]]> 0 0 false false Sat Dec 06 21:14:05 -0800 2008 Sat Dec 06 21:14:05 -0800 2008 3 1 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2001 Sat Jan 10 21:35:49 -0800 2009 Sat Jan 10 21:35:49 -0800 2009 5 0 false false Sat Jun 20 21:19:49 -0700 2009 Sat Jun 20 21:20:24 -0700 2009 3 0 false false Sat Nov 22 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Fri Jan 16 02:44:49 -0800 2009 Fri Jan 16 02:45:36 -0800 2009 4 0 false false Tue Dec 09 16:28:20 -0800 2008 Tue Dec 09 16:28:40 -0800 2008 4 0 false false Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sun Sep 30 11:52:46 -0700 2007 Tue Oct 09 08:14:29 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 0 false false Tue Jun 01 00:00:00 -0700 1999 Wed Jun 20 14:54:13 -0700 2007 Wed Jun 20 14:59:12 -0700 2007 more...]]> 5 0 false false Sun Jul 29 12:52:08 -0700 2007 Sun Jul 29 12:54:06 -0700 2007 5 0 false false Tue Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2008 Sat Jan 26 12:57:01 -0800 2008 Sat Jan 26 13:00:21 -0800 2008 4 0 false false Mon Jan 01 00:00:00 -0800 2001 Wed Jul 11 22:32:11 -0700 2007 Wed Jul 11 22:32:35 -0700 2007 5 0 false false Thu Dec 27 14:22:00 -0800 2007 Thu Dec 27 14:24:22 -0800 2007 2 0 false false Thu Nov 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Sat Nov 24 07:14:56 -0800 2007 Wed Nov 28 08:08:38 -0800 2007 4 0 false false Mon Oct 01 00:00:00 -0700 2007 Wed Sep 26 11:10:29 -0700 2007 Mon Oct 15 14:27:54 -0700 2007 3 0 false false Tue Apr 08 17:18:08 -0700 2008 Tue Apr 08 17:25:42 -0700 2008 http://www.goodreads.com/book_link/follow/8?book_id=49144