BOOK REVIEWS


was practically unknown on the island. Rosario Ferre introduced the writer
and her work to an intimate crowd that included Santiago's mother and other
siblings. A friendly and informal rapport between author and public ensued
that would later mark her ascending career. Santiago's first book delineates
her childhood experience in Puerto Rico up to the age of thirteen and her
forced migration to New York City. According to Santiago, "the person I was
becoming when I left Puerto Rico was erased, and another one was created.
The Puerto Rican jibara who longed for the green quiet of a tropical after-
noon was to become a hybrid who would never forgive the uprooting."2 Af-
ter the presentation and amicable exchanges of conversation, the inevitable
controversy over the title of her memoirs arose. Despite continuous expla-
nations over her choice of diction, the title continues to ignite the emotional
and national sensibility of many readers on and off the island.3
 Two years afterwards, in 1996, I1 was again among the public that witnessed
the launching of Santiago's second work, casting memoirs aside to try her
hand at fiction with her first novel, America's Dream (Harpercollins, 1996).
The presentation took place in a fancy hotel ballroom in Isla Verde, Puerto
Rico, sponsored by the Universidad delSagrado Coraz6n and Elizabeth Arden
cosmetics. The event received ample promotion and publicity and obviously
attracted a larger (less intimate) crowd. Santiago was no longer an unknown
author; the success of her first book (initially published in English and later
translated into Spanish) had won her critical acclaim and assured a loyal
reading public. Several critics focused on the symbolic interpretations of
Santiago's novel from socio-political perspectives. On the other hand, many
readers gravitated toward the novel's central concern: the story of a working
class Puerto Rican woman (America) who is physically, psychologically, and
emotionally abused by her partner. She finally realizes that her life and men-
tal stability depend on her decision to put an end to this abusive relationship.
Migration to the United States becomes her only means of escape.
 In 1998, Santiago returns to the writing of memoirs with the publication of
Almost a Woman (Perseus Books, 1998). The work covers the eight-year
period after she arrives in New York that marks her development as a young
bilingual, bicultural adolescent. It charts her years of study at the School
for the Performing Arts and the difficulties of living up to her family's
expectations. Santiago is constantly exposed to uncertain terrain while
confronting issues involving race, class, and gender. She tries to negotiate
and balance her life between two opposing extremes: those of being a "decent
Puerto Rican sefiorita" or an overly "Americanized" young woman. During


2 When I Was Puerto Rican, Vintage Books, 1994, p. 209.
3 For a critical analysis of the work's title and other thematic concerns, see Lisa SAnchez
Gonzilez's Boricua Literature. New York: NYU Press, 2003.
4The Turkish Lover, 2004, p. 1.