I’m not tooooo late reviewing this one as it was published on 23 January.  Although I’ve read many novels of immigration over the years, this told a new story of the Dominican Republic in the 1960s and of a young wife reminiscent of the heroine of “The Girl with the Louding Voice”.Thank you to John Murray Press for allowing me to read this book via NetGalley in return for an honest review.

Angie Cruz – “Dominicana”

(16 December 2019, NetGalley)

A powerful and moving novel with at least one absolutely heart-wrenching moment (I wrote that in my notebook first, but actually there are several), centred around 15-year-old Ana’s marriage to Juan, twice her age and just one of the Ruiz brothers who are flipping between New York and the Dominican Republic, full of tales of American riches but in that age-old way trying to form partnerships to get hold of land and young, fertile women and other resources through marriage. Everything is seen as an exchange of goods, money or power/information, and Ana has to learn quickly.

So Ana is whisked off to New York where she must keep all her wits about her, deal with her abusive husband and try to carve out some space and education for herself. It’s heart-breaking when every small mistake can be catastrophic and she’s watched at every turn, and devastating when she can only perhaps be saved when she becomes a qualifying link in the matriarchal line, although her mother is still a strong force of criticism.

Like in “The Girl with the Louding Voice”, Ana, this woman in the 1960s, without paperwork and with every penny saved liable to disappear, has her own powerful voice and personality and an author to champion her untold story – in this case, Cruz’s mother’s story, who said to her,

“Who would be interested in a story about a woman like me? It is so typical.”

And yet it’s a fascinating window into the lives of just one group among many groups of immigrants in the world, and their home country’s history, too.