Bodega Dreams

As an avid reader I'm always on the quest for new books. After reading an excerpt of Bodega Dreams I was hooked. The language was great, it is a language I often speak myself, Spanglish. Growing up in a not so nice neighborhood in Long Island, NY I found the book comforting becuase it hit close to home. I loved the characters, especially Sapo. The story is one that goes on in all walks of life, deceit. I hope that Ernesto Quinonez finds the inspiration to write a second book to let his readers know if Blanca & Chino stay together. Until then I will spread the word of his first great novel and wait for a second.

I just finished one of the best and most important books I have read in years, Ernesto Quinones' Bodega Dreams. Bodega Dreams is an entire universe, vividly written. Quinones has a great ear for voices. The characters are more real, with their dialogues, than some of the people you spoke to today. This is one of those rare books that is funny, sad, inspiring, and alive, a book which rings in places like a bell, rings with the absolute, humming truth that makes a classic.The real fix, the real hit in reading is when you see your own experience of the world reflected, when you nod your head in agreement, laugh with recognition. A great book can be confirmation that you exist, that your world is important. Nothing is more crippling to the soul than erasure, and a great book about the world you recognize is the opposite of erasure.That's why reading Bodega Dreams is POWERFUL. I'm an americana, but I work in a barrio, and all day long I listen to the voices and stories that come out of it. The voices are beautiful, sad, funny, interesting, alive and so damn VALUABLE. The lives of my clients, which make up the life of the barrio, are full of injustice, and and courage. My clients speak with a language (Spanglish or nuevorican) of their own. The barrio is a huge slice of the America I know, of the life that I live (at least vicariously). The disorientation I sometimes feel when I leave my particular barrio and enter the mainstream media world - a world which erases and denies the barrio and it's language - is unsettling. Sometimes it makes me very angry, as though someone had suddenly slapped the people I talk to all day and told them to shut up. As though they'd been gagged (or maybe I should say gagged again, because it often seems to me that their dealings with the mainstream are an endless series of gaggings, interruptions, and disrespect). Well, Ernesto Quinones's book rips the gag off.One of the key characters in Bodega dreams is a former political activist, William Irizarry aka Willie Bodega. After the activism of the seventies failed, and after some personal betrayals, Willie Bodega became a junkie, and then got clean and became the East Harlem version of a mafia don. Except Bodega is a don with a difference. His dream is to spend dirty money renovating, building, educating - empowering, in fact - the people of the ghetto.The protaginist, Julio, has to negotiate between his love for his evangelica wife, who needless to say, is a real straight arrow, and his loyalty to, and growing involvement with, Willie Bodega. There are also fascinating subplots, character sketches worthy of Dickens, and colored glimpses of puerto rican city life.Trust me, on the most superficial level, Bodega Dreams is a fast ride and great reading, even if you haven't the slightest interest in Spanish Harlem or la cultura puerto riquena. But on other levels the book is revolutionary. This is a DANGEROUS book - as George O

Bodega Dreams is a shiny penny in the middle of nothingness. Vivid characters and fresh dialogue. Ernesto Quinonez has succeeded in accomplishing a novel that spills out sad and beautiful truths without worrying about who its spilled on. This book is reminiscent of authors such as Piri Thomas, Junot Diaz and Abraham Rodriguez Jr. but Mr. Quinonez is still able to carve his own niche into the land of Latino Literature.

Bodega Dreams brought back alot of memories of growing up in Spanish Harlem (Carver Projects) during the 70's and 80's. Each time I read something that would trigger a memory, I would read the section to my husband (a wonderful "redneck") and tell him that's how it was while I was growing up. The men playing dominoes outside, the congos being played on the streets, the pumps opened on a hot summer night, the salsa coming from the apartment windows...all of it brings back memories. I moved away in 1984 and moved around the country. I now call a small quiet town in Ohio home, but my family is still there. My mother still lives in the same apartment that I grew up in. I don't go back often but the memories in the book were sweet. Ernesto has captured the feel and emotions of the spanish people in harlem. For all you latinos out there, read this book...you won't be disappointed.

Here is the novel Junot Diaz would have loved to have written. But I don't think Quinonez should be compared to anyone. He is a very authentic voice. This is a beautiful and heartbreaking book. The language is so fast you'd think you're on a subway going uptown, and so humorous, you're entertained throughout the voyage. I highly recommend this novel! (And cheap paperback too--so give them to your friends!)