These opening chapters reveal a Latina with an erudite mind, a gift for phrasing and secrets she’s eager to share with the fictional writer M. Domínguez. We see the object of Tatum Vega’s complicated fascination through her lens but M. remains a cipher for the moment. What we get instead is an incomplete yet rich detail of her past, her education, her family, her bibliophilia.
Like many people of color, she was unsatisfied with the limited representation of her people. Moving to Massachusetts because she fell in love with Bostonian authors, she becomes disillusioned once she’s subjected to the tone-deaf racism rampant on campus. Teachers and alumni blatantly discuss and dismiss racism in their books. Characters of color are written of in the most appalling fashion by authors and no one seems to find this strange.
Meanwhile, she hunkers down, outnumbered and ignored and unable to speak her mind about the nastiness on display. She yearns to move away from white European writers, painters and other artists whose experiences are supposedly universal yet don’t speak to her personally. You come to understand why she decided to move to a country where she could speak her native tongue and eschew English. All this is in rich prose that displays the workings of an adult mind steeped early in the written word.
Like many people of color, she was unsatisfied with the limited representation of her people. Moving to Massachusetts because she fell in love with Bostonian authors, she becomes disillusioned once she’s subjected to the tone-deaf racism rampant on campus. Teachers and alumni blatantly discuss and dismiss racism in their books. Characters of color are written of in the most appalling fashion by authors and no one seems to find this strange.
Meanwhile, she hunkers down, outnumbered and ignored and unable to speak her mind about the nastiness on display. She yearns to move away from white European writers, painters and other artists whose experiences are supposedly universal yet don’t speak to her personally. You come to understand why she decided to move to a country where she could speak her native tongue and eschew English. All this is in rich prose that displays the workings of an adult mind steeped early in the written word.