The Noise of Infinite Longing : A Memoir of a Family--and an Island

Rating:
Summary: Unspoken truth.
Review: A must read for educated immigrants who find themselves constantly having to jump loopholes in order to win over stereotypes!
Torregrossa narrates her and her mother's story as puertorrican women in search of identity, self realization and ultimately happiness in difficult social circumstances. Torregrossa depicts and honors the memory of her mother and illustrates how this pioneer tries to open barriers for herself and her family despite a wrongful marriage and a society that cannot figure her out and wants her back in the household between her social barriers.
I personally found many passages in which the author spells out truths about being a successful woman in a biased, and sometimes racist environment to be the absolute unspoken truth for professional women with an accent.
I also like the fact that she intends to depict herself and her family for who they really are, regardless of how some may interpret their actions as signs of weakness.
This is a book I intend to read again.

Rating:
Summary: Dud
Review: Not a very interesting book. The author states over and over and over again how emotional she is because her mother died at age 78. She drinks alcohol. Chapter after chapter. However, her love for her mother is never shown in detail, its just mouth service. Blah Blah Blah. I'm so upset. Goal of book is to show author's family is very high class. Does Torregrosa really write for the New Yorker? You'd never know it.

Rating:
Summary: (3.5)A poignant return to family identity
Review: Upon the sudden death of their mother, six siblings gather in Texas for the funeral, coming together for the first time in fifteen years. As the oldest, Luisita Lopez Torregrosa recounts the family history and their divergent roads to this meeting, an occasion of both unbearable grief and the joy of reconnecting family ties.

This is a vibrant memoir of a Puerto Rican family's assimilation into the bland landscape of America; as the nexus of the family, the mother personifies this loss of identity. Yet, Torregrosa, as a journalist, is living in the real world, one of political upheavals, social changes and island dictatorships. In finding her way back into the heart of the family at their mother's death, Torregrosa must acknowledge her own life choices and the emotional distance she herself has imposed upon the family ties.

The family bloodlines tied to Spain, the most significant and beautifully described years are those spent in Puerto Rico, where the houses, the foliage and the city are perfectly rendered. These early days pass in a tropical paradise, the children protected by privilege, while the island's economy deteriorates and great numbers of unemployed leave for the distant promise of life in a new world.

On the occasion of their mother's death, surrounded by her siblings, it is difficult for Luisita to imagine her socially active mother in this shabby little Texas town, far from the carefree days of her Puerto Rican youth. Yet each child owns a separate vision of her mother, replete with individual memories and the colors and smells of childhood. In Texas, the mother is more ordinary, blending quietly into her surroundings. Viewed through the author's eyes, in Puerto Rico, the mother is a hothouse flower, exotic and passionate, a woman who draws the stares of men and the jealously of women.

The dramatic island identity of a family grounded in culture and learning fades like old photographs, as time bleaches the color from the pages of their history. Still, there is no sadness that does not have its genesis is affection, the children influenced profoundly by their mother's love. For Torregrosa, a return to her island roots reawakens an intimate self-knowledge and appreciation for "Latin America, and the noise of people who explain their lives on the street...the noise of infinite longing." Luan Gaines/2004.