1. Your favorite sister and why?
Everybody liked Lorreta, of course she is the most independent one and carves a place in her life. Another thing that we did not discuss in the book club meeting is Lorreta's sexual preference. Her being a lesbian is presented in a way as should be, as something normal, but what struck me is how it was not a big deal in a Latino family.
2. Which of the four gifts would you rather have?
This was certainly anti-climactic. One feels cheated by Bette. To think all your life that you have a gift of curses that can kill people and one day you are told that it is just a joke told by your big sister. The big sister has some explaining to do, which she doesn't in this book.
June 29th, 2009
This past Saturday the Latino Book Club members- Lizzy, Jacquie, Donna, Cathy, Irene, and our guests Chris and Naya (Irene’s sister and her grand-daughter, visiting from LA) - met at our regular coffee shop. We had a hard time giving the book The Gifted Gabaldon Sisters a “grade,” as we felt that as a concept, the story, the relationship between the sisters, the Hopi history was really well crafted, but by the end of it all it fell apart. I can only say that the ending about the gifts and the adult lives of the sisters are anti-climactic. All through the story the reader is led to believe that the sisters have magical gifts, till suddenly Bette, one with the gift to tell lies, says it is a lie that she told. It is hard to understand why, and how no one, especially the sister who supposedely had the gift to curse people to their death did not react. To live all your childhood and young adult life thinking you have killed someone is a horrible pain to suffer.
On the other hand the documentation of the Hopi culture certainly gives a fresh flavor to the stories we have read. Read the comment by the author below about including the Hopi tradition in the novel. The colonization and the brutal treatment of the Hopis by the Spanish are ironic and give a glimpse into the history and power domination of the south-west. To see how the Latino population has become the oppressed one in the lands they settled in. It is the history of power and colonization. Others are welcome to comment on our blog site.
Even though we have mixed feeling about the book, at least we are very happy that the author Lorraine Lopez took the time to send such detailed well thought responses. We wish her all the best.
Moving on to our next month’s book, please read the June e-newsletter for more information. We will be reading Rolando Hinojosa’s Ask a Policeman. It is the first detective novel for our club, and I thought it will be an interesting change for the summer. The Public Library has a copy and you can also order it through Pomegranate Books http://pomegranate.booksense.com/
The Book Drive is coming along and as soon as we are ready to launch we will send out more information to all book club members.
Lorraine Lopez the author of the book has agreed to answer questions about the book. We look forward to get a glimpse of how an author creates his or her art. Please enjoy.
Some questions for the author by Donna:
1. In the Gifted Gabaldon Sisters, you weave a rich tapestry of fiction, nonfiction, and traditions from various cultures and then tie it together so effortlessly that it lifts the reader past their preconceived ideas of those cultures. What was your inspiration for writing about the magic and drama you so aptly portray with these characters?
First of all, thank you for noticing the multi-textual structure and multi-genre presentation of the novel and gracias for your opinion that I succeeded with this framework. When drafting the novel, I thought it important to create many layers and many sources of story to deepen and expand the narrative. This entailed a great deal of research, and it acquainted me with the “iceberg” principle behind research used in fiction. Only a small percentage of the material I gathered ended up in the book, but I had to have the base in order to present that tip. So, indeed, I learned how Hopi women wheeled their hair in “butterfly whorls,” the onerous and labor intensive rituals performed before marriage, what kinds of myths and legends were and are still being told, and as much as I could about the world as it was when Fermina was a child. I also had to investigate the WPA reports, and my research led me into some intrigue, wherein a rather controlling director of the project routinely suppressed reports that did not honor a particular vision of the past, and I was able to use this as well. I also had to research Los Angeles from the 1960s to the present to portray the cultural, geographic, and historic context correctly, or as correctly as possible. This took a tremendous amount of time, but I acquired an amazing wealth of information about the world of the novel in this process, and I am relieved that, from your point of view, it was successful.
My inspiration for the book was rather pragmatic, but also borne of a seed sewn by family history that I uncovered. I decided to use the multi-textual approach and the multiple perspectives to tell the story because I worried that I would not be able to sustain a single perspective in relaying a narrative as complex as this. Insofar as the spark for the work goes, years ago I was stunned to learn that my paternal grandfather was the biological son of the man he thought was his uncle and a Pueblo woman who worked in his grandparents home, a Native American servant. This woman actually had two children. Her son was adopted by his biological father’s brother and wife who were childless, but the daughter was sent to an asilo de huerfanos (an orphan asylum). This bit of family history saddened and intrigued me. I wanted to imaginatively revisit and recreate that time. I wondered what if things had been a bit different and what if my grandfather’s birthmother could tell her story. What kind of story would she tell and how would it be told so as to be preserved for later generations? This was the impetus for the novel.
2. The interaction of family members was raw, and clean. Did you draw from your own childhood experiences with family members? Or did the characters come to you completely fleshed out with their individual personalities waiting for you to chisel out the parts you wanted for this story?
I believe I draw on three critical sources or braid three distinctive strands together when writing fiction: 1) imagination, 2) experience, and 3) imaginative experience gained from literature I have read. For this novel, the characters all seem to represent elements of myself as well as information about human interaction that I acquired growing up in a large family. The family dynamic I observed certainly informs my writing, but the fictional family soon took on a life of its own and a distinctly separate dynamic. There is no way to convey all the nuance, depth, and complexity that comprises a living human being, so these characters consist of glimpses informed by my imagination, my experience, and that imaginative experience I’ve gained from reading, and in that order.
3. The story implies that women are better off without men. And it also raises the issues women face at many ages with sexual predators. Do you feel women are sexually preyed upon in all cultures, ages, economic standing and nationalities? If so how can they empower each other as they did in your story?
I would like to think the story suggests that some women are better off without men, like Sophia and Bette, but Loretta is very fond of her brother, and Rita is clearly better off with Rafe. On a personal note, like Rita, I do a lot better when my husband is around. Perhaps my message is that not all women are better off with men as our culture seems to suggest. Marriage, to me, does not automatically mean a happy ending.
As to the second part of this question, I would like to avoid generalization, but I believe that as long as there is an unfair power dynamic, conditions present themselves that can be conducive to predatory behavior. I also believe that without equality, there can be no true intimacy between the partners. The exception to this, of course, would be found in healthy relationships between parents and their children.
Typically, in our culture and my subculture, men have been empowered and women dominated by men. Thus conditions for abuse and predation on the part of the more powerful group—men—have been prevalent.
The culture I emerge from is known for patriarchal relationships. Machismo is a term coined by Spanish speakers when describing this dynamic. I had the unusual experience of growing up in a matriarchal home. That is to say, my mother was in charge. She and my father both worked, but she handled the money, she made important decisions, she disciplined all of us—including my father, and she was the unchallenged leader in our home. In my father’s home, the same dynamic occurred. His mother ruled her twelve children and husband. To go back to my previous statement: In these homes, I witnessed how a matriarchal household can be as stifling and oppressive to the individual (male or female) as a patriarchal home.
4. Have you considered writing, or have you written any books for young adult readers? (ages 6-13) I would think they would benefit significantly from your courageous portrayal of their struggles and fears.
Thank you for this great question! My second book, Call Me Henri (Curbstone Press, 2005), is a young adult novel about a thirteen-year-old boy who is an immigrant from Mexico. It’s set in Pacoima, California, where he is an ESOL student who would like to study French, though he is prevented from doing this because, according to the teachers and administrators at his school, he must first learn English. My next project that I intend to begin next year is another young adult novel (working title: “The Vidalia Onion Queen”). This will be the story of Flor, a character who appears in Call Me Henri. She is the child of immigrant farm workers who relocate to the South. Flor really caught hold of my imagination and she will not let go.
Currently, I have a book of short stories coming out this fall from BkMk Books. The collection is titled “Homicide Survivors Picnic.” And I also have a collection of essays I have edited for the University of Michigan Press coming out in December. That book is titled “An Angle of Vision: Women Writers on Their Poor and Working Class Roots.” This work presents powerful personal essays and memoir on social class and gender by writers including Dorothy Allison, Sandra Cisneros, Joy Harjo, and Judith Ortiz Cofer, among others. And right now, I am working to finish another novel for HBGUSA/Grand Central Press, which brought you The Gifted Gabaldón Sisters. This novel is titled “Limpieza,” a word that refers to the Santeria practice of clearing evil spirits out of a physical space, and I’m having a great time writing it. It will be out this coming spring.
Again, I send abundant thanks for reading my book and for your interest in the work. These are thought-provoking questions that I enjoyed answering.
