Book Review: Dominicana
11.08.2020
Book Review | Dominicana by Angie Cruz
It doesn’t matter how many books I buy for myself (and believe me it’s a lot), someone else gifting you a novel will often be the push you need to try something new. I have a pretty good idea of what I like to read, as well as scouring reviews, bookstagram and bookshops for recommendations of new-to-me genres and authors, but ultimately I’m the decision maker. Yet, many of the books that currently grace my bookshelves were gifted and, so far, lots of those have been favourites. Books I would have been so much poorer for missing out on but would likely never have selected for myself.
Back in May my Grandmother’s birthday gift to me (selected quite possibly by my Mother) was Angie Cruz’ Dominicana. One of six books on this year’s Women’s Prize Shortlist I was certainly aware of it but it was way down below Maggie O’Farrell’s Hamnet and Bernadine Evaristo’s Girl, Woman, Other on my “to read” list. At first glance, though the cover art was attractive, the reviews great and the story intriguing, there wasn’t anything that particularly drew me to it. Once it was in my possession though the pull of a crisp, jacketed, brand new hardback was too tempting and I dove straight into it asap. And what a read!
Dominicana follows Ana Cancion, a fifteen year old girl from the Dominican Republic, who is pushed into a marriage with one of the hard-working, heavy drinking, restaurant-owning Ruiz brothers, Juan. There’s important business behind the marriage, with Juan Ruiz promising to help the family with both financial affairs and US Visas. With her older sister Teresa already impregnated by (in their mother’s opinion) her good for nothing beau, it’s Ana who must ensure the future of her family. After a hasty marriage on New Year’s Eve 1964, Ana enters a new year and a new life in New York City.
There’s so much to love about this novel. Ana’s voice is completely unique and I found the experience of seeing the world through her eyes absolutely shattering. I know I always bang on about how I find that I learn about history, politics and empathy through novels more than anything else. I also know that it’s flippant to leave it at that. You can’t just read a book and say you get it and you care without knowing how to bring that information back into the real world. But this novel is one that absolutely backs up that claim. I’ve always been aware of the immigrant experience in the USA, it’s a huge part of the melting pot of cultures and languages that the country is known for. I’ve read novels before about the topic of course but never felt like I was there living the experience with the character as I did with Ana. Cruz does such a great job of showing the difficulties women like Ana face, about the twin issues of familial duty and personal happiness being at such odds and about the sacrifices that are made. It’s no surprise at all that the book is inspired by her own Mother’s experience.
While reading I wasn’t aware of the depth of research that must have gone into writing the novel. When I think back on it now I realise how detailed the sense of the city was, the political situation, the racial tensions, the financial constraints. Not to mention the music, the food, the transportation options, the topics of conversation! It’s such a perfect little world captured in a few hundred pages! Sure, I was educated. I was inspired. But I was also lost in Ana’s world. The descriptions of the Dominican Republic were so at odds with those of New York City and I was completely absorbed in her journey to find her feet.
There are moments of happiness in the novel but it’s not a happy tale. It’s a realistic, heart-wrenching novel with moments of unbridled joy, lust and friendship. I think what I liked most about the novel was the nuance of the situation. Sometimes things were great, sometimes they were awful. Usually though they were just a bit of everything with no clear right or wrong option. We’re not all in Anna’s situation of course and nor would we wish to be I don’t think. Nowadays though, we expect a lot of clarity in our lives. A lot of clarification of whether something is good or bed. Right or wrong. Left or right. And usually life isn’t like that. It’s not that it’s not in our power to make decisions and choose the path our life takes. Often many of us do have that option. It’s the fact that a good life means different things to different people and that decisions are rarely as black or white as we wish them to be. I often felt very very sad for Ana in this novel but I also felt that she had immense dignity, incredible ambition and a powerfully measured way of making her own decisions.