How the García Girls Lost Their Accents by Julia Alvarez

Uprooted from their family home in the Dominican Republic, the four García sisters--Carla, Sandra, Yolanda, and Sofía--arrive in New York City in 1960 to find a life far different from the genteel existence of maids, manicures and extended family they left behind. What they have lost--and what they find--is revealed in the fifteen interconnected stories that comprise this exquisite first novel. Just as it is a feature of the immigrant experience to always be looking back, the novel begins with thirty-nine-year-old Yoland's return to the Island in "Antojos" ("Cravings") and moves magically backward in time to the final days before the exile that is to transform the girls' lives. Along the way we witness their headlong plunge into the American mainstream, but although the girls try to distance themselves from the Island by ironing their hair, forgetting their Spanish, and meeting boys unchaperoned, they remain forever caught between the old world and the new. With bright humor and rare insight, Julia Alvarez vividly evokes the tensions and joys of belonging to two distinct cultures in a novel that is utterly authentic and full of irrepressible spirit. 

*Used in Very Good Condition.  

There are a few folds, no pen/pencil/highlighter marks.