Read Recently “Woman Hollering Creek” by Sandra Cisneros
Title: Woman Hollering Creek
Author: Sandra Cisneros
Origins: WHC was one of those you couldn’t avoid if you were in college in the early 1990s, a totemic example of a kind of American literature establishment English departments overlooked: about women, about Mexican-Americans about cities like San Antonio, Texas. That it became a rallying cry for the Political Correctness movements of the time has done it and its legacy a disservice. Its much more than repeating a community’s story back to it. Which I discovered when I took this book on my recent trip up north to Healdsburg with my girlfriend.
Synopsis: A collection of short stories largely focused on towns, communities and heads of households along the Mexican-American border.
Verdict: Sandra Cisneros uses the words the way a great ballerina or athlete uses their body, which a grace that seems effortless but masks the craft and skill of a great professional. The title story is a feminist classic, deservedly so, but deserves a place alongside Vonnegut’s "The Long Road to Forever" as an example of perfect narrative architecture barely holding in a swelling heart about to burst. I also liked "Little Miracles, Kept Promises", a story told entirely through letter to the Virgin De Guadalupe, which races past its gimmick well before you you can label it a gimmick. The last story (which I quoted in an earlier post) reads like a section of a Texas-fried Tales of the City, which coming from this San Francisco convert, is high compliment.
I very much enjoyed Cisneros’s first collection The House on Mango Street (WHC is her second) but felt, there as here, she needs a bit more patience with some of her stories. There’s maybe five too many one-and-two pagers that read as ideas for larger pieces that never materialized instead of the pieces themselves. But thankfully, those pass quietly and leave us with the larger, meatier work, which is wonderful.