The Line of the Sun (Paperback, New edition)

Poet Cofer's first novel explores Puerto Rican life, both on The Island and in El Building, a New Jersey tenement. In his Puerto Rican village, young Guzman is considered wild like the devil, but he's just alert and curious, seeking a different kind of love from his mother's harsh concern. He finds it with Rosa, the spiritist and sometime whore who's been hired to free him of evil spiritual influence. As a young man, he returns to Rosa as a lover. Scandal ensues; Rosa is forced to leave town; Guzman gets into more trouble and falls into the hands of an unscrupulous labor contractor who promises him work in the US. His sister and best friend marry and leave for the mainland separately, and it is their daughter, Marisol, who emerges as the novel's narrator, relating mythic tales about people and places she's never known. In New Jersey, Marisol and her brother are caught between conflicting values: their father enrolls them in an upper-middle-class Catholic school; their mother, who can't speak English, relies on the sense of community she finds in El Building and resists upward mobility. When Uncle Guzman suddenly reappears in their lives, Marisol finds someone she can love and trust. His visit coincides with growing tension: factory workers are preparing to strike; police cars circle in ominous threat; the women of El Building are planning a special spiritist meeting, which ends in tragedy and precipitates Guzman's return to the Island while Marisol's family moves to the suburbs. Despite some plot contrivance and awkward exposition, this is a vivid picture of family life - and a welcome addition to the literature of Latino culture in the US. (Kirkus Reviews)

Set in the 1950s and 1960s, "The Line of the Sun" moves from a rural Puerto Rican village to a tough immigrant housing project in New Jersey, telling the story of a Hispanic family's struggle to become part of a new culture without relinquishing the old. At the story's center is Guzman, an almost mythic figure whose adventures and exile, salvation and return leave him a broken man but preserve his place in the heart and imagination of his niece, who is his secret biographer.

General

Imprint:	University of Georgia Press
Country of origin:	United States
Release date:	April 1991
First published:	April 1991
Authors:	Judith Ortiz Cofer
Dimensions:	216 x 140 x 19mm (L x W x T)
Format:	Paperback
Pages:	304
Edition:	New edition
ISBN-13:	978-0-8203-1335-1
Categories:	Books > Fiction > General & literary fiction > Modern fiction
LSN:	0-8203-1335-1
Barcode:	9780820313351

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