Leaving Tabasco: A Novel

by Carmen Boullosa

Overview

Carmen Boullosa is one of Mexico's most acclaimed young writers, and Leaving Tabasco tells of the coming-of-age of Delmira Ulloa, raised in an all-female home in Agustini, in the Mexican province of Tabasco. The Washington Post Book World wrote, "We happily share with [Delmira] ... her life, including the infinitely charming town she inhabits [and] her grandmother's fantastic imagination." In Agustini it is not unusual to see your grandmother float above the bed when she sleeps, or to purchase torrential rains at a traveling fair, or to watch your family's elderly serving woman develop stigmata, then disappear completely, to be canonized as a local saint. As Delmira becomes a woman she will search for her missing father, and will make a choice that will force her to leave home forever. Brimming with the spirit of its irrepressible heroine, Leaving Tabasco is a story of great charm and depth that will remain in its readers' hearts for a long time. "Carmen Boullosa ... immerses us once again in her wickedly funny and imaginative world." — Dolores Prida, Latina "To flee Agustini is to leave not just a town but the viscerally primal dreamscape it represents." — Sandra Tsing Loh, The New York Times Book Review "A vibrant coming-of-age tale ... Boullosa [is] a master.... Each chapter is an adventure." — Monica L. Williams, The Boston Globe

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780802138606
Publisher:	Grove/Atlantic, Inc.
Publication date:	05/15/2002
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	256
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.25(h) x (d)

Editorial Reviews

Told in memoir format, this coming-of-age work by Mexican novelist Boullosa (They're Cows, We're Pigs) tracks Delmira from childhood through late adolescence in a small town in Mexico. Delmira's memories alternate with those of her grandmother, a tyrannical household overlord who spins magical tales of witches, revivified lizards, and a woman who dissolves into urine. Grandmother always takes Delmira's mother's side in any dispute, though the mother is ineffectual and wanton. Only Uncle Gustavo, who lives the sophisticated life in Mexico City, and the local teacher take Delmira under their wing. In the end, Delmira is arrested for distributing antigovernment leaflets and is forced to flee to Europe, never to see her hometown again. This novel is full of vivid images, and the combination of realism and folkloric magical realism serves Boullosa well until Delmira returns the narrative to the present, where she relies on sighs rather than substance. Recommended for collections strong in Latin American literature.--Harold Augenbraum, Mercantile Lib. of New York Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information.

Library Journal

A coming-of-ager set in a small Mexican town, from the author of They're Cows, We're Pigs (1997). Delmira Ulloa is eight, raised in a house "where only women live," and she's intensely curious about her unknown father. Her grandmother and mother see no reason to satisfy her curiosity and endeavor to distract her with stories, some magical, some more prosaic. This strategy temporarily appeases the strong-willed girl and helps nurture her vivid imagination as well as her love of reading. What the classics don't provide in the way of entertainment, Grandma does. The old lady regales Delmira with tales of the awful day the sea turned to stone and the stones to sea, the albino crocodile that once stalked frightened villagers, the glorious birds who fled the forest and then refused to fly; she instructs the girl as well in family history and heroics. Delmira scarcely knows what to believe, and her mind begins to play tricks on her: her grandmother turns halfway into a hen, an elderly servant dissolves into a puddle of urine, and so forth. Meanwhile, she takes a fiendish glee in spying on adults (especially when her indifferent mother commences a blatant affair with a lascivious priest) and finally tracks down her missing father, who sells shawls in the open-air market. Most of this tumultuous narrative seems to take place in the late 1960s, and it ends with a few predictable scenes of political and cultural unrest witnessed by Delmira as a teenager. Her subsequent sojourn in Germany, where she remains, amounts to little more than a bleak, self-imposed exile from the colorful world of her childhood. Vivid but incoherent.

Kirkus Reviews