Song of a Reformed Headhunter

The passing-around of the point of view between the four girls and their parents, the movement of the stories back in time from New York to the Dominican Republic, the intensely poetic prose of Yoyo or Yolando, obviously the stand-in for the author: all these narrative devices make these stand-alone stories cohere into a vivid portrait of an immigrant family, into a novel. The best story is "Daughter of Invention," which is both playfully poetic and immensely moving in its depiction of the passing of the creative torch from mother to daughter.

Abstract Shapes         those abstract shapes of who I was which she found so much easier to love             Julia Alvarez, “Folding My Clothes” The army uniform that I hated my mother spa every Saturday, and rested on a bamboo pole to dry with her flesh-colored bra. The supporter of my oppressor is my oppressor too. My mother is an oppressor who does things for me, like your mother for you.