The Sad Passions (Semiotext(e) / Native Agents)
In Veronica Gonzalez-Peña'sThe Sad Passions, four sisters, daughters of a mad mother, devoted to her and afraid of her, tell their versions of a tortured family romance. The sisters' and mother's raw, impassioned voices are intricately interwoven, and, Rashomon-like, the novel speaks of familial love's strange demands, harsh effects, and lasting ties. Veronica Gonzalez Peña'sThe Sad Passionsis honest and riveting.(Lynne Tillman)In Veronica Gonzalez's truthtelling novel of four bright sisters growing up with a mentally ill mother, the lucid, elegant writing defies the very havoc it describes. Built of multiple voices, with curious, haunting photographs,The Sad Passionsis immersive, harrowing, and wonderfully intelligent.(Michelle Huneven, author ofBlam)For all of the effects of erasure and absence onThe Sad Passions, the narration is incredibly present, crawling on the page in spidery, sprawling observations, setting up pools and lairs that lure a reader in.(Margaret WapplerLos Angeles Times)The Sad Passions, Veronica Gonzalez Peña's extraordinary novel of desire, loss, and matrilineal history, explodes the teenage pregnancy script through its unflinching plumbing of the bond between mother and daughter.The Sad Passionsbegins with a story we think we know, and then shows us how little any of us understand: about our ancestors, our parents, ourselves.(Lisa LocascioThe Los Angeles Review of Books)An exquisite and moving panorama of late 20th century life in Mexico and the US.(George PorcariCalifornia Literary Review)I like the way the [cover] image moves with this novel, the way the absence becomes the presence. Veronica Gonzalez Peña does not write absence as a form of lack, her absence froths and grows agitated, it fills up the page with pulsing need.(Saehee ChoHTML Giant)