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A novel of voice and clarity
By Derryll White
Quiñonez, Ernesto (2000). Bodega Dreams.
This novel is situated in Spanish Harlem, New York City, and written by a Puerto Rican author who lives and works there. Quiñonez finds the voice of the streets of Spanish Harlem, making the whole experience real.
This novel is all about place, giving the reader Spanish Harlem as a pulsating, seething area alive with people calling it their own, their home. It is also about people – how they come to America to better themselves, to create hope and promise. The struggle to be successful while still retaining cultural traditions is a circumstance that transcends both Puerto Ricans and Harlem.
Quiñonez creates a United States quite foreign to the views of the late President Trump. There is a clear vision of what needs to be done in order to “Make America Great Again!”, with people standing up for each other. This is a novel of voice, and there is a clarity here which I really appreciate.
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Excerpts from the novel:
NEED – The botanica also doubled as a pawnshop. It was a place you could find things hocked out of a deep need for something good or bad.
LIFE – The first rule of the street: “Not everything that snaps at you is trying to threaten your manhood.”
THE CITY – The Taino Towers on 124th and Third took up an entire city block. There were four towers, one on each corner. Four towers of cheap, ugly white concrete. Forty floors of cheap windows and a lobby with a guard who slept most of the night. At the base of each tower were businesses ranging from supermarkets to dental offices.  I hate towers. The taller the building the more people you place on top of one another, the higher the crime rate. They’re mammoth filing cabinets of human lives, like bees in a honeycomb, crowded and angry at paying rent for boxes that resemble prison cells.
NEW YORK – Manhattan at night seen from its surrounding bridges is Oz; it’s Camelot or Eldorado, full of color and magic. What those skyscrapers and lights don’t let on is that hidden away lies Spanish Harlem, a slum that has been handed down from immigrant to immigrant, like used clothing worn and reworn, stitched and restitched by different ethnic groups who continue to pass it on. A paradox of crime and kindness.
– Derryll White once wrote books but now chooses to read and write about them. When not reading he writes history for the web at www.basininstitute.org.