A Place Where the Sea Remembers

August 30, 1993
Latina writer Benitez begins her excellent debut novel with a painful event--the wait for a drowned body to float to shore--and works backwards, retracing the myriad, seemingly insignificant steps that led to the character's death. As in Like Water for Chocolate , this novel sympathetically explores the lives of Mexican women caught in a mystical, fatalistic world. Chayo, a flower seller, and her sister Marta, a chambermaid, live in a poverty-stricken village by the sea. When 15-year-old Marta is raped and becomes pregnant, seemingly barren Chayo and her husband, Candelario, agree to take the child. Soon after, however, Chayo discovers that she too is expectant and reneges on the promise. Livid, Marta arranges with el brujo , the witch doctor, to put a curse on her sister's child. Both women bear sons, and a remorseful Marta tells her sister about the curse, which she claims to have had removed by la curandera , the healer. But when Chayo's son almost dies after being bitten by fire ants, the sisters' relationship once more deteriorates and, inexorably, the tragedy presaged in the book's opening chapter comes to pass. Benitez's unsparing vision into the stark realities of village residents' lives offers a poignant counterpoint to superficial vacation snapshots of Mexico.

September 1, 1993
This emotionally gripping, though flawed first novel tells a story of life and death in the Mexican village of Santiago. When the infertile Chayo unexpectedly conceives, she and her husband renege on their promise to raise her sister's unwanted child as their own, setting in motion a chain of events that ultimately result in tragedy. The author displays an exceptionally keen sense of detail and creates interesting people whose very different lives lend variety to the narrative. However, the book suffers from an abundance of underdeveloped characters and story lines, which at times render it rather unsatisfactory. The inclusion of an apparently supernatural element works potently at a visual level but makes no substantive contribution to the novel and may prompt readers to wonder if Benitez is simply hopping on the bandwagon of Magical Realism. Recommended for libraries with a strong interest in Latino literature.-- Cherry W. Li, Univ. of Southern California Lib., Los Angeles

Copyright 1993 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 1, 1994
YA-In the small Mexican town of Santiago, childless Chayo and her husband find their prayers answered when they agree to adopt the unborn child of Marta, Chayo's sister. When Chayo becomes pregnant and they change their mind about adoption, Marta has a witch doctor put a curse on Chayo's unborn baby, setting in motion a series of tragic events. Characters, presented individually by the author and then woven together by plot, attach themselves to readers' sensibilities, and lull them into believing in the goodness of life in this sleepy seaside community. However, all this cultural richness is poised for tragedy when divine retribution takes over.-Ginny Ryder, Lee High School, Fairfax County, VA

September 1, 1993
First-novelist Benitez has written a remarkably simple but exquisite novel depicting events in the lives of several villagers in a small seaside town in Mexico. Each chapter is sufficient unto itself, yet later, when Benitez shows how those lives connect, the story becomes immeasurably richer, more complete. The chapters, titled after the occupations of their main characters (the salad maker, the photographer, the fisherman), are interspersed with short interludes from Remedios, the healer. Remedios' patience is infinite, and she recognizes what the book's other characters do not--the inevitability of fate. Benitez fills each page with small details that resonate with meaning, and her portrayal of what makes life worth living is breathtaking. A portion of the sale of each book will be donated to Nuestros Peque$nos Hermanos, Our Little Brothers and Sisters, in Cuernavaca, Morelos, Mexico. ((Reviewed Sept. 1, 1993))(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 1993, American Library Association.)