Eccentric Neighborhoods

by Rosario Ferré

Book Overview

Una obra pica sobre los linajes de dos familias, escrita por la autora de La casa de la laguna. "Mam naci en Guayam s el 6 de enero de 1901. Mi abuelo, Alvaro Rivas de Santillana, estaba convencido de... This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0374146381
• ISBN13: 9780374146382
• Release Date: February 1998
• Publisher: Farrar Straus Giroux
• Length: 340 Pages
• Weight: 1.52 lbs.
• Dimensions: 1.4" x 6.4" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

It could have been real!

This is a book I never would have believed to be fiction unless it told me. The characters feel real. There are a lot of people to keep track of and sometimes it goes back and forth in time but there is a useful family tree in the front of the book that I kept referring to. I got a feel for Costa Rica past and present and I enjoyed the stories of the different characters. I am going to have some of my students read it and I highly recommend it!

Gee what a wonderful novel

I stumbled on Ms Ferre's work and quickly became addicted to it. The intimations of Puerto Rican history here are subtle and artistically wrought. Comparisons to Garcia Marquez are unfair but probably inevitable. She's not in that league, neither in imagination nor narrative gifts. But she's still one heck of a storyteller and her characters are wonderfully evoked. Unputdownable, especially if you know a bit about Puerto Rico and its history.

Es una buenísima novela

Esta novela escrita al estilo de una colección de cuentos es digna de lectura. Su forma de trabajar con dos familias aisladas y unirlas para asi contar una sola novela es magnifica.

A gleaming little gem, intelligently written.

The stories told by the narrator, Elvira, about several generations of her family, make you wish she had more aunts, uncles, grandparents, and parents for us to meet. The author has a slightly quirky way of introducing the reader to each of Elvira's colorful ancestors and of telling what ultimately is Elvira's story. This is not a novel, per se, but a collection of short, connected stories that, when all told, form a complete picture.

You'll disappear for days.

Those of us who were outraged that Rosario Ferré did not win the National Book Award for House on the Lagoon, will be delighted that she has a new offering. Eccentric Neighborhoods follows the fortunes of two Puerto Rican families from the end of the 19th century to the present, using the women of the family to exemplify the knife's edge where so many Latinas balance-a family that proclaims itself to be modern while limiting their daughters' choices. Ferré wisely steers away from the magic realism that has become a Latin cliche in the hands of anyone but Gabriel Garcia Marquez, and tells a straightforward, compelling tale of plantation society on a collision course with the changing world. Unfortunately, the stunning, un-put-downable House on the Lagoon is a tough act to follow, and while Eccentric Neighborhoods certainly ranks above the rest of this year's Latin-themed fiction, it lacks the depth and complexity of her first novel. Ferré is a beautiful writer, and I'll definitely be thrilled to follow her career. I look forward to what she comes up with next.