- School & Library Binding
- Publisher: San Val (Sep 2000)
- Language English
- ISBN-10: 0613281683
- ISBN-13: 978-0613281683
- Product Dimensions: 19.1 x 14.2 x 2.3 cm
- Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars See all reviews (1 customer review)
- Amazon Bestsellers Rank: 5,527,289 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)
Geographies of Home
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More About the Author
Product Description
Review
"With haunting magic realism reminiscent of Gabriel Garcia Marquez and Isabel Allende, Perez underscores the dual existence every immigrant's child navigates. And she reminds us that even those who make us live through the unthinkable can be redeemed by their power to love". - Latina magazine
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
Product Description
After leaving the college she'd attended to escape her religiously conservative parents, Iliana, a first-generation Dominican-American woman, returns home to Brooklyn to find that her family is falling apart: one sister is careening toward mental collapse, another sister is living in a decrepit building with her abusive husband and three children, and a third sister has simply disappeared. In this dislocating urban environment Iliana reluctantly confronts the anger and desperation that seem to seep through every crack of her family's small house, and experiences all the contradictions, superstitions, joys, and pains that come from a life caught between two cultures. In this magnificent debut novel, filled with graceful prose and searing detail, Loida Maritza Perez offers a penetrating portrait of the American immigrant experience as she explores the true meanings of identity, family--and home.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
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Customer Reviews
Most Helpful Customer Reviews
Format:Paperback
Loida Maritza Perez was born in the Dominican Republic and now lives in New York City, much like Iliana, the protagonist of this, her debut novel. As with many first novels, this book has an autobiographical feel to it, but don't let that put you off - Perez is a very accomplished writer whose style combines a sort of magical realism with a brutal and often violent reality.
This is one of the most disturbing books I've read in a long time - Perez draws the reader deeply into the mental processes and daily lives of physically abused and mentally disturbed women. A strong mother with supernatural abilities is the glue that holds this problem-ridden family together.
This book successfully evokes the issues, both racial and cultural, faced by Dominican immigrants in New York City, but its story is much more universal. I was a little disappointed by the book's ending, but on the whole, I highly recommend it.
Most Helpful Customer Reviews on Amazon.com (beta)
Amazon.com:
25 reviews
27 of 27 people found the following review helpful
Haunting Yet Inspiring
1 May 2000
Format:Hardcover
I loved this haunting yet inspiring look at a Latino family. I've read some of the more negative reviews on this site, some of which note that it is hard to believe some of the things that motivate key characters, and therefore, dismiss this wonderful work. I completely disagree. Someone on the edge of mental breakdown could very well be pushed pass the point of no return by an event as traumatic as a rape. There are many women who, for reasons most of us will never fathom, stay in physically abusive relationships, so Pasion's story is very believable.
I think Loida Maritza Perez has drawn a detailed protrait of a family that exhibits many of the characteristics of immigrant (and other) families everywhere. They suffer heartbreaks and challenges, some of them extreme. They shift and reposition their roles relative to other family members. They have moments when love prevails, and moments when they give in to the baser human emotions and human failiings. But above all, Iliana's family is indeed a loving family, and a fascinating one at that.
The struggles they face are very familiar to many of us who are immigrants, and/or who have grown up with particular religious backgrounds. The fact that to some the motivations and actions of what I see as very well-drawn characters are unfamiliar, even strange, is all the more reason why this work is so important. It gives us an opportunity to learn about differences, while at the same time allowing us to glimpse the many similarities that tie all of us together.
I highly recommend Geographies of Home, and urge you to look for both the new and the familiar, because they are both there, evoked in beautiful language that will both haunt and inspire you to seek to over your own trials and tribulations with your families.
14 of 14 people found the following review helpful
Definitely worth reading!
6 Aug 2001
Format:Hardcover
At first it was a little hard to get into it, it kind of dragged. But as you get to know the characters you can't put it down. Maybe the story could have done without Pasion (he was a little extreme) but he still ended up working well with the story. Great read!!!
14 of 15 people found the following review helpful
Unflinchingly Bold
14 Sep 2003
Format:Paperback
GEOGRAPHIES OF HOME is riveting from start to finish. Loida Maritza Perez, in her evocative, attention-getting prologue alone, establishes a tone of richness and depth. What follows is a story well beyond conventionality. She presents a compelling tale that flows beautifully as if it were an intimate, personalized character analysis of members of a very complex family. The author has structured a work both mystical and convincingly realistic about a severely troubled Dominican family. Perez, in my opinion, is brilliant first, in creating complicated, authentic characters and then telling their stories with graceful, inventive language. The reader shares the horrors of contemporary migration with all its incumbent trauma. However, I suggest that it is the predominance of Caribbean spiritualism that gives this story its illusive, absolutely haunting character. Loida Maritza Perez is masterful at her craft. This novel will stay with you. Very Highly Recommended. Te felicito profundamente, Loida.
Alan Cambeira
Author of AZUCAR! The Story of Sugar (a novel)
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