Ay, Madre: Latine Books Featuring Complex Portrayals of Motherhood

I talked about this book in the first ever send of this newsletter and wouldn’t normally mention a book twice in such a small window. But this one is a must when talking about complex portrayals of motherhood.

Through a series of one-sided phone calls with her older sister that feel like eavesdropping on some juicy chisme, we get to know Colombian American teen Luciana as she navigates the aftermath of a hurricane, coming out, planning for her future, and handling her family’s… eccentricities. She is never really asked so much as expected to be everyone’s caretaker, translator, and general keeper of the peace, perhaps most especially by her mother. It is tempting to write her off as a narcissist and a bad mom, and sometimes she very much is those things. But as I got to know Luciana’s eccentric, stubborn, youth-obsessed (and hilarious) grandmother, I was reminded how generational cycles repeat and inform how one generation parents the next. There is so much love between the mothers and daughters in this novel, but it’s complicated. I love books that get into those sticky places in relationships, and this one does it with so much humor and heart.

How Not to Drown in a Glass of Water also tells a beautifully layered story entirely from one end of a conversation, this time through a series of job counseling sessions. And if you think there’s no possible way that could be interesting, think again. Cara Romero is in her mid-50s when she’s laid off from the factory job she worked for decades. She re-enters the job market during the Great Recession and is set up with a job counselor, but every one of their 12 sessions together turns into Cara telling her life story. This woman is an absolute riot from page one, whether she’s dishing colorful neighborhood chisme, chronicling her eventful love life, or telling a story about gentrification or tragedy. But mixed in with her hilarious anecdotes are bits about her estranged son, building towards the reveal of how they became estranged. This slim little book hit me in the feels when I really wasn’t expecting it to, and I would give anything for Cara to be a real person I could invite over for cafecito.

The matriarch of the De la Garza family is a hard woman, the sort who runs her house with an iron fist and whose bad side you pray you never end up on. I spent most of the novel cursing Mama Elena for her constant emotional and physical abuse of Tita, then realized she is a poster child for the “hurt people hurt people” adage, if there ever was one. Her behavior is never excusable, but it is contextualized the more we learn about her life. I find it hard to put into words exactly why this character has had such an impact on me (my own other is the best and nothing like her at all). I think it’s that Mama Elenda and Tita remind me that there can be a sort of peace in accepting why a person is who they are and not having to like or tolerate it, either.

For more on the book and its significance in my reading life, here’s a post I wrote about it, including a small crash course on some Mexican history.

I did not intentionally set out to write a post where pairs of books had elements in common, but here we go again: With the Fire on High is another book full of food descriptions and accompanying recipes that will make your mouth water (my kingdom for some tembleque) and was, I learned but moments ago, inspired in part by Like Water for Chocolate. Second to the food, the thing I love most about this book is its portrayal of young motherhood. In an interview with Publishers Weekly, Acevedo discussed the care with which she approached the subject, very intentionally treating it with dignity and tenderness. Emoni makes the decision to keep her child and is raising her son in a loving home with her abuela. She has agency and dreams of being a chef, and gets to see those dreams realized in a story that upends the tropes we usually see of inner city mothers. I don’t know if I’ve read a story before or since that doesn’t relegate a young teen mother of color to a stereotype. I just love me some Elizabeth Acevedo.

After her father passes away, middle-schooler Isla Larsen Sanchez finds herself spending summers in Puerto Rico. She doesn’t really have a choice in the matter—her mother sends her there while remaining in New Jersey–but Isla makes the best of it, eventually coming around to enjoying the time she spends on the island with her great aunt. When Isla turns 18, her great aunt dies, and it’s only then that Isla discovers she has a gift passed down through her family’s cuentistas, or storytellers. The tales of dead family storytellers are brought back to life and play out on a loop in front of her. Isla is at first swept up in the novelty of it all, but then things get a little too real: if she can’t solve the murder mystery playing out in her latest vision and close that loop, it could wind up costing Isla her life.

This is one of my favorite Ann Dávila Cardinal books, and not just because I’m a sucker for magical realism. I don’t want to spoil anything so I won’t get specific, but the explorations of grief and generational trauma in this story are so moving. Characters you have no sympathy for one moment are softened in the next, or at least better understood. Can you tell I love a story that dives deep into people’s humanity?

This recommendation is coming to you from my TBR. You’ll have to wait a few months to read it, but I think it will be worth the wait. It’s the story of two women in 1940s Mexico. There’s Gloria, who lives a cushy upper-class life with her husband and five children, one of whom has just been kidnapped. And there’s Nuria, who comes from a working-class background and has been unable to conceive the child she so desperately wants to save her marriage. After putting herself through a litany of horrific fertility treatments to no avail, Nuria decides to pursue adoption, only to be rejected for being “too young to adopt” as a woman in her 30s. Then she gets an opportunity to adopt after all, one that seems too good to be true. This book promises twists and turns that read like a thriller and asks how far a mother would be willing to go for the love of her children… I am ready for this, especially from the author of Witches.