Living at Night (Coming of Age Series)

Rating:
Summary: A quiet novel about a young woman that opens your eyes.
Review: Erica García is a young, working-class, coffee-drinking Puerto Rican lesbiana who drives clunky covertibles, has a girlfriend and works the nigh shift as an aide at the Training School for the Reterded. This novel, Mariana's first, explores the protagonist's familial, economic, cultural and lesbian connections by focusing on Erica's inner world while she lives at night, cleaning, and caring for the residents in the ward. The prose is clean and fluid throughout the novel; the writing is at its best when Erica drives along the New England countryside and reflects upon her life while connecting with the seasons. It's a quiet, well-crafted novel about a young woman's seemingly simple life that opens your eyes to her inner motivations and to the situation in institutions. The author is one of the few Latina lesbians writing novels in English in this country.

Rating:
Summary: Vivid story, would make a great movie
Review: In a gripping, graphic debut novel, Mariana Romo-Carmona presents a vivid look into a young woman's life as an aid in a women's institution. Here the women are constantly sedated and monitored for unexpected incontinence, yet are always treated with respect. Here living at night appears to be the only defense for a Hispanic woman in white Connecticut, surrounded by people who give her a sense of self-worth. Here is a story worth telling, and worth reading.

Rating:
Summary: Provocative coming-of-age novel
Review: Living at Night draws us into the world of Erica Garcia, a young, working-class Puerto Rican lesbian searching for her niche in the world in WASP-y Connecticut, despite the pressures of satisfying the expectations of family, lovers, and friends. Erica's unresolved anguish over her mother's illness causes her to drop out of college and work as a nurse's aide at an institution for developmentally disabled persons. In stunning, frank language, the author describes ERica's interactions with her charges, who often are kept sedated on mega-doses of drugs and whose every action and bodily function are duly monitored, but who stubbornly maintain their dignity and assert their individuality in a sterile environment. Though Erica comes to realize that she may not be able to rescue all who languish in institutions, she can take charge of her own life, and in so doing, ensure that the world is a better place for those she cares about most.