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Come Together, Fall Apart
These eight short stories and novella travel from Panama's dusty city streets to its humid beaches to create an affecting portrait of a country in transition. They illustrate family bonds and generational conflicts, youthful infatuation and genuine passion. Tender, ambitious, bold, and unflinching, they herald the arrival of a fresh, exciting, and lavishly talented new voice in American literature.
306 pages, Paperback
First published April 6, 2006
30 people are currently reading
991 people want to read
About the author
Cristina Henríquez
8 books1,054 followersCristina Henríquez is the author of four books, including, most recently, The Great Divide, a novel about the building of the Panama Canal that explores those rarely acknowledged by history even as they carved out its course.
Her novel The Book of Unknown Americans was a New York Times Notable Book of 2014 and one of Amazon’s Top 10 Books of the Year. It was the Daily Beast Novel of the Year, a Washington Post Notable Book, an NPR Great Read, a Target Book of the Month selection, and was chosen one of the best books of the year by BookPage, Oprah.com, and School Library Journal. It was longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and was a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize.
Henriquez is also the author of The World In Half and Come Together, Fall Apart: A Novella and Stories.
Her work been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Real Simple, and more, as well as in the anthologies State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America and Thirty Ways of Looking at Hillary: Women Writers Reflect on the Candidate and What Her Campaign Meant.
She has been a guest on National Public Radio, and is a recipient of the Alfredo Cisneros Del Moral Foundation Award, a grant started by Sandra Cisneros in honor of her father.
Her novel The Book of Unknown Americans was a New York Times Notable Book of 2014 and one of Amazon’s Top 10 Books of the Year. It was the Daily Beast Novel of the Year, a Washington Post Notable Book, an NPR Great Read, a Target Book of the Month selection, and was chosen one of the best books of the year by BookPage, Oprah.com, and School Library Journal. It was longlisted for the Andrew Carnegie Medal for Excellence in Fiction and was a finalist for the Dayton Literary Peace Prize.
Henriquez is also the author of The World In Half and Come Together, Fall Apart: A Novella and Stories.
Her work been published in The New Yorker, The New York Times Magazine, The Wall Street Journal, The Atlantic, Real Simple, and more, as well as in the anthologies State by State: A Panoramic Portrait of America and Thirty Ways of Looking at Hillary: Women Writers Reflect on the Candidate and What Her Campaign Meant.
She has been a guest on National Public Radio, and is a recipient of the Alfredo Cisneros Del Moral Foundation Award, a grant started by Sandra Cisneros in honor of her father.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 70 reviews
July 25, 2021
Short stories and a novella set in Panama, the longer work about the December Noriega was moved out when the USA invaded in 1989. The author's father is from Panama and she spent summers there.
Found in hoopla for Readtheworld21 - Central America.
Found in hoopla for Readtheworld21 - Central America.
February 27, 2016
This is the prototypical first book by an MFA graduate. It’s well-written in a technical sense, with smooth, polished prose and pacing, clear themes, and the right characters in the right places. But it isn’t affecting; it’s pleasant, but forgettable.
This volume contains 8 short stories, of around 25 pages each, and one novella of just over 100 pages, with generous margins and spacing. All the stories are set in Panama and with a couple of exceptions, focus on characters living there. The characters for the most part are children to young adults and must navigate relationships with parents and lovers. There is some variation in the stories: while most are realistic, contemporary and centered on relationships, “The Box House and the Snow” is an almost sinister magical-realist tale, and the titular novella widens its scope to depict the U.S.’s invasion of Panama in 1989 from the point-of-view of an adolescent boy. Most of the stories are in the first person, and most feature female protagonists.
I am not surprised to see that Henriquez has had much more commercial success with later books, because she does show promise here. The novella is probably the best story of the lot, as it has the most depth and development. Characters and their relationships seem believable, the settings are well drawn, and the writing is very readable. But the stories lack that spark that would make them stand out, and in large part I fault their endings, which tend to peter out. Maybe it’s just me, but I expect a great short story to end with a bang or a twist – or, barring that, at least a definite conclusion to whatever issue was raised in the story. The slow winding-down, leaving some issues still open, can work well in a novel, which is more about the journey than the destination. But in a short story, the journey is just around the block – so I want some zing. “The Wide, Pale Ocean,” my favorite of the short stories, would have been excellent if the author had taken a risk with the ending, but she doesn’t and so despite some vivid scenes and characters, the story ultimately doesn’t amount to much.
As my world books challenge book for Panama, I liked this fairly well, and read through it quickly. It’s not at all bad. But it could have been better.
This volume contains 8 short stories, of around 25 pages each, and one novella of just over 100 pages, with generous margins and spacing. All the stories are set in Panama and with a couple of exceptions, focus on characters living there. The characters for the most part are children to young adults and must navigate relationships with parents and lovers. There is some variation in the stories: while most are realistic, contemporary and centered on relationships, “The Box House and the Snow” is an almost sinister magical-realist tale, and the titular novella widens its scope to depict the U.S.’s invasion of Panama in 1989 from the point-of-view of an adolescent boy. Most of the stories are in the first person, and most feature female protagonists.
I am not surprised to see that Henriquez has had much more commercial success with later books, because she does show promise here. The novella is probably the best story of the lot, as it has the most depth and development. Characters and their relationships seem believable, the settings are well drawn, and the writing is very readable. But the stories lack that spark that would make them stand out, and in large part I fault their endings, which tend to peter out. Maybe it’s just me, but I expect a great short story to end with a bang or a twist – or, barring that, at least a definite conclusion to whatever issue was raised in the story. The slow winding-down, leaving some issues still open, can work well in a novel, which is more about the journey than the destination. But in a short story, the journey is just around the block – so I want some zing. “The Wide, Pale Ocean,” my favorite of the short stories, would have been excellent if the author had taken a risk with the ending, but she doesn’t and so despite some vivid scenes and characters, the story ultimately doesn’t amount to much.
As my world books challenge book for Panama, I liked this fairly well, and read through it quickly. It’s not at all bad. But it could have been better.
July 3, 2014
After loving Cristina Henriquez’s novel, The Book of Unknown Americans (Knopf, 2014), I was thrilled to discover her short story collection, Come Together, Fall Apart (2006).
The novella and eight short stories take place in Panama during the late 1980s when the country was experiencing unrest and instability under the rule and American-led overthrow of Manuel Noriega.
Henriquez’s characters, ranging from adolescents to the elderly, are everyday Panamanians who remain intensely human in their relationships and family conflicts even as uncertain change threatens life as they know it. They experience love, rejection, commitment, infidelity, closeness, estrangement, divorce, abuse, solitude, and grief--all against a backdrop of a country in turmoil where revolutionaries sell weapons on the street, looters take advantage of the opportunity to steal, and car bombs explode intermittently.
“Teetering on the edge of a cliff”
The Panama of the late 1980s rises to character status in these stories, as the country become a warzone and experiences a revolution that will forever change its people and its future.
“We were all scared in those days,” Ramon, the adolescent narrator of “Come Together, Fall Apart” begins the novella. “Noriega was on his way to collapse and already the chaos had started.” (p.199). During this turbulent time in his life and his country, Ramon experiences young love and rejection; displacement from his childhood home; loss of his father, who chooses to end his life rather than be uprooted; and ostracism of his mother by other family members, who blame her for failing to prevent her husband’s suicide.
When Panama officially declares war, Ramon describes his feelings and undoubtedly those of many Panamanians:
“Before that, every moment had felt like waiting. As though we were all, as a country, teetering on the edge of a cliff. We were peering down; we were holding our breath. We were on the brink of something, but we were waiting for some signal, some gust of wind to push us forward, to catapult us into action, into change. It came then. And we all, I think, wanted to believe that whether we jumped or fell, there would be something there to catch us, that things would be better once it was over.” (p. 243)
Male-Female Relationships
Henriquez explores male-female relationships in several stories. I knew I would like “Yanina” as soon as I read the first sentence: “Yanina has asked me to marry her forty-five times.” The story, whose protagonist is reluctant to make commitment, ends romantically with his proposal to her etched in sand. In “Chasing Birds” an American couple travel to Panama to find exotic birds but the romantic adventure envisioned by the wife doesn’t happen. It takes a desperate act on her part to divert his attention from a white-collared swift. The adolescent girl in “Wide Pale Ocean” is torn between the closeness she has always felt for her mother and her newfound interest in a teenage boy. And in “Come Together, Fall Apart” Ramon has to face the painful truth that the adolescent girl he adores prefers his best friend.
Family Relationships
Family relationships are also at the heart of many of these stories. As her own parents “who speak the same language but cannot understand each other” are seeking a divorce, the young American girl in “Mercury” crawls in bed with her Panamanian grandparents, seeking a closer connection in a way where words are unnecessary (p. 112).
In “Drive” the protagonist describes her feelings when she is out walking on night and sees her estranged father sitting on a bench:
“It’s the strangest feeling whenever I see him—like seeing the love of your life the one who left you, when you’re just out doing errands, trying to keep up with the business of the everyday. You half want to run and jump on them and bury your face in their neck and hold on forever and you half want to turn away, shielding yourself.” As her father pleads with her for money, she realizes “we’re staring at each other under the moon but to him I’m just anybody.” (p. 70).
The young daughter in “Beautiful” who feels so lucky to “have two parents to kiss me good night” when her estranged father returns home is frightened and deeply confused when she discovers he is a child abuser. The estrangement of the daughter in “Wide Pale Ocean” from her father, whom she has never met (“His name was Ronaldo and he was better at the merengue than the tango, but that was all I knew.” (p. 156)), fosters a very close bond with her mother that becomes threatened when she reaches adolescence and starts to discover boys.
The family relationship in “Come Together, Fall Apart” begins to “crumble” just like buildings all over Panama during the invasion when the father of the family makes the decision to stay in his home as it is demolished rather than be displaced. Although his wife reluctantly honors his request, other family members blame her for not preventing his suicide.
My Favorites
The best story in this excellent collection is “Beautiful.” It includes one of the most graphic descriptions of child abuse I have ever read, made more poignant and intensely personal because it is written from perspective of the eight-year-old narrator whose estranged father is her abuser. The father she feels so lucky to have at home once more (who coincidentally returns when his brother wins the lottery) becomes the person she must flee:
“Something swells inside me, something hateful and thick and hurtful and sad, and at that moment more than anything else in the world I want to get as far away from him as I can. I want to sink to the middle of the earth, I want to float out to the middle of the ocean.” (p. 124)
Equally powerful is this young narrator’s ability to overcome this horrendous experience by cutting off the hair that her father pulled so hard to hold her down she could feel it breaking from her scalp.
“And before I know it, I am standing, with the door locked, in the bathroom, up on the wooden step stool, looking in the small, wavy mirror. I am cutting it all off, as close to the roots as I can get and promising myself that he will never never never again be able to hold me like that. I cut the millions of rivers of hair until it’s all dried up and washed out and can be filled with nothing but wind. Little by little, I feel the fire cool.” (p. 125)
Even though the narrator’s mother is angered that her daughter has “ruined” her hair and her father asks quietly, “‘Who did this to you?’”, no one can take away the daughter’s feeling of confidence that she is “more beautiful than ever,” protected by the wall she has built around herself that her father can never again penetrate (p. 128)
Cristina Henriquez’s Writing Style
Henriquez’s writing style is simple but graceful, full of empathy and humanity for the characters she imagines.
Her writing is full of wonderful analogies. Here are some examples:
from “Drive”
“Most memories might be like water, but some are like wood—solidly there that you can feel them and smell them and wrap your hands around them, and for a hundred years they will never go away.” (p. 65)
from “Beautiful:
“I am a caterpillar and a butterfly at the same time—unsure of the attention, wanting to stay hidden, but also feeling like I’ve broken into a new life where I am more glittering and confident and have left the other one behind.” (p. 121)
From “The Box House and the Snow”
“Then, all at once, millions of snowflakes burst from the murky sky and fluttered to the earth. It was a pillow ripping open. It was a silent, exploding firework. It was as if God had been collecting mounds and fistfuls and armfuls of snow for centuries, and finally, could hold the white flakes no more. He tore a seam in the fabric of heaven and sent the snowflakes scampering forth.” (p. 181)
Henriquez also ends her stories with powerful images: a marriage proposal written in the sand with a stick (“Yanina”); a daughter sitting on the rocks overlooking a bay holding her mother’s cremation urn, “letting my fingertips graze the dust” (“Ashes”); a woman who has just miscarried realizing that “nothing is ever really lost. Even if you can’t find it, even if you can’t hold it in your thin, tired arms, it’s always somewhere.” (“Drive,” pp. 81-82); a mother and daughter floating in the water “lost to everything but each other.” (“The Wide, Pale Ocean,” p. 177). A granddaughter whose parents are divorcing crawling in bed between her grandparents in search of connection (“Mercury”).
The novella and eight short stories take place in Panama during the late 1980s when the country was experiencing unrest and instability under the rule and American-led overthrow of Manuel Noriega.
Henriquez’s characters, ranging from adolescents to the elderly, are everyday Panamanians who remain intensely human in their relationships and family conflicts even as uncertain change threatens life as they know it. They experience love, rejection, commitment, infidelity, closeness, estrangement, divorce, abuse, solitude, and grief--all against a backdrop of a country in turmoil where revolutionaries sell weapons on the street, looters take advantage of the opportunity to steal, and car bombs explode intermittently.
“Teetering on the edge of a cliff”
The Panama of the late 1980s rises to character status in these stories, as the country become a warzone and experiences a revolution that will forever change its people and its future.
“We were all scared in those days,” Ramon, the adolescent narrator of “Come Together, Fall Apart” begins the novella. “Noriega was on his way to collapse and already the chaos had started.” (p.199). During this turbulent time in his life and his country, Ramon experiences young love and rejection; displacement from his childhood home; loss of his father, who chooses to end his life rather than be uprooted; and ostracism of his mother by other family members, who blame her for failing to prevent her husband’s suicide.
When Panama officially declares war, Ramon describes his feelings and undoubtedly those of many Panamanians:
“Before that, every moment had felt like waiting. As though we were all, as a country, teetering on the edge of a cliff. We were peering down; we were holding our breath. We were on the brink of something, but we were waiting for some signal, some gust of wind to push us forward, to catapult us into action, into change. It came then. And we all, I think, wanted to believe that whether we jumped or fell, there would be something there to catch us, that things would be better once it was over.” (p. 243)
Male-Female Relationships
Henriquez explores male-female relationships in several stories. I knew I would like “Yanina” as soon as I read the first sentence: “Yanina has asked me to marry her forty-five times.” The story, whose protagonist is reluctant to make commitment, ends romantically with his proposal to her etched in sand. In “Chasing Birds” an American couple travel to Panama to find exotic birds but the romantic adventure envisioned by the wife doesn’t happen. It takes a desperate act on her part to divert his attention from a white-collared swift. The adolescent girl in “Wide Pale Ocean” is torn between the closeness she has always felt for her mother and her newfound interest in a teenage boy. And in “Come Together, Fall Apart” Ramon has to face the painful truth that the adolescent girl he adores prefers his best friend.
Family Relationships
Family relationships are also at the heart of many of these stories. As her own parents “who speak the same language but cannot understand each other” are seeking a divorce, the young American girl in “Mercury” crawls in bed with her Panamanian grandparents, seeking a closer connection in a way where words are unnecessary (p. 112).
In “Drive” the protagonist describes her feelings when she is out walking on night and sees her estranged father sitting on a bench:
“It’s the strangest feeling whenever I see him—like seeing the love of your life the one who left you, when you’re just out doing errands, trying to keep up with the business of the everyday. You half want to run and jump on them and bury your face in their neck and hold on forever and you half want to turn away, shielding yourself.” As her father pleads with her for money, she realizes “we’re staring at each other under the moon but to him I’m just anybody.” (p. 70).
The young daughter in “Beautiful” who feels so lucky to “have two parents to kiss me good night” when her estranged father returns home is frightened and deeply confused when she discovers he is a child abuser. The estrangement of the daughter in “Wide Pale Ocean” from her father, whom she has never met (“His name was Ronaldo and he was better at the merengue than the tango, but that was all I knew.” (p. 156)), fosters a very close bond with her mother that becomes threatened when she reaches adolescence and starts to discover boys.
The family relationship in “Come Together, Fall Apart” begins to “crumble” just like buildings all over Panama during the invasion when the father of the family makes the decision to stay in his home as it is demolished rather than be displaced. Although his wife reluctantly honors his request, other family members blame her for not preventing his suicide.
My Favorites
The best story in this excellent collection is “Beautiful.” It includes one of the most graphic descriptions of child abuse I have ever read, made more poignant and intensely personal because it is written from perspective of the eight-year-old narrator whose estranged father is her abuser. The father she feels so lucky to have at home once more (who coincidentally returns when his brother wins the lottery) becomes the person she must flee:
“Something swells inside me, something hateful and thick and hurtful and sad, and at that moment more than anything else in the world I want to get as far away from him as I can. I want to sink to the middle of the earth, I want to float out to the middle of the ocean.” (p. 124)
Equally powerful is this young narrator’s ability to overcome this horrendous experience by cutting off the hair that her father pulled so hard to hold her down she could feel it breaking from her scalp.
“And before I know it, I am standing, with the door locked, in the bathroom, up on the wooden step stool, looking in the small, wavy mirror. I am cutting it all off, as close to the roots as I can get and promising myself that he will never never never again be able to hold me like that. I cut the millions of rivers of hair until it’s all dried up and washed out and can be filled with nothing but wind. Little by little, I feel the fire cool.” (p. 125)
Even though the narrator’s mother is angered that her daughter has “ruined” her hair and her father asks quietly, “‘Who did this to you?’”, no one can take away the daughter’s feeling of confidence that she is “more beautiful than ever,” protected by the wall she has built around herself that her father can never again penetrate (p. 128)
Cristina Henriquez’s Writing Style
Henriquez’s writing style is simple but graceful, full of empathy and humanity for the characters she imagines.
Her writing is full of wonderful analogies. Here are some examples:
from “Drive”
“Most memories might be like water, but some are like wood—solidly there that you can feel them and smell them and wrap your hands around them, and for a hundred years they will never go away.” (p. 65)
from “Beautiful:
“I am a caterpillar and a butterfly at the same time—unsure of the attention, wanting to stay hidden, but also feeling like I’ve broken into a new life where I am more glittering and confident and have left the other one behind.” (p. 121)
From “The Box House and the Snow”
“Then, all at once, millions of snowflakes burst from the murky sky and fluttered to the earth. It was a pillow ripping open. It was a silent, exploding firework. It was as if God had been collecting mounds and fistfuls and armfuls of snow for centuries, and finally, could hold the white flakes no more. He tore a seam in the fabric of heaven and sent the snowflakes scampering forth.” (p. 181)
Henriquez also ends her stories with powerful images: a marriage proposal written in the sand with a stick (“Yanina”); a daughter sitting on the rocks overlooking a bay holding her mother’s cremation urn, “letting my fingertips graze the dust” (“Ashes”); a woman who has just miscarried realizing that “nothing is ever really lost. Even if you can’t find it, even if you can’t hold it in your thin, tired arms, it’s always somewhere.” (“Drive,” pp. 81-82); a mother and daughter floating in the water “lost to everything but each other.” (“The Wide, Pale Ocean,” p. 177). A granddaughter whose parents are divorcing crawling in bed between her grandparents in search of connection (“Mercury”).
September 26, 2019
Hard to believe that this was the first contemporary literary fiction I've read set in modern day Panama. Such a treat to see the story of my mother's home country told like this, to see the place I spent many summers of my childhood written about with such attention, love, and care. The city of PTY is far more diverse than this book gives it credit for, and I understand this was published in '06, just before the globalization of the city really exploded, but I suspended belief for the sake of it. Anyway, I'm really glad I read this. Was good for my soul to see places like Chitré, San Miguelito, and Napoli Pizza mentioned in a collection of stories. :)
November 10, 2009
Part of the reason I love Hispanic authors so much is that their novels seem like cultural examples of my Latina heritage; I feel closer to the half of my family that lives in Panama.
However, Cristina Henriquez wrote this book of short stories that take place specifically in Panama. I've never read any stories or books with a Panamanian setting and revolve around Panamanian characters. The stories are beautifully written, and I plan on keeping up with Henriquez and her works.
As someone who is Panamanian-American, I've never read anything with a narrator that is actually, like me, Panamanian-American. One of the stories is from this point of view and it was unbelievable how much I related to it and how I'd never actually experienced that kind of connection to a character before; a complete cultural connection.
The titular novella, "Come Together, Fall Apart" ends the collection and I experienced quite a catharsis on finishing it & the book - I called my mother right away to talk to her about Panama and about teh book. And these opinions focus on my personal attachment, but I would recommend this book to everyone, if just to dive into a foreign country and relish in Henriquez' lovely prose.
However, Cristina Henriquez wrote this book of short stories that take place specifically in Panama. I've never read any stories or books with a Panamanian setting and revolve around Panamanian characters. The stories are beautifully written, and I plan on keeping up with Henriquez and her works.
As someone who is Panamanian-American, I've never read anything with a narrator that is actually, like me, Panamanian-American. One of the stories is from this point of view and it was unbelievable how much I related to it and how I'd never actually experienced that kind of connection to a character before; a complete cultural connection.
The titular novella, "Come Together, Fall Apart" ends the collection and I experienced quite a catharsis on finishing it & the book - I called my mother right away to talk to her about Panama and about teh book. And these opinions focus on my personal attachment, but I would recommend this book to everyone, if just to dive into a foreign country and relish in Henriquez' lovely prose.
March 10, 2023
Around-the-world #145: Panama 🇵🇦.
Decently written short stories, mostly about relationships, mostly set in Panama. Individually they are fine, but the collection is too similar. Furthermore, the style lacks emotion, it is all very cerebral and bloodless.
Decently written short stories, mostly about relationships, mostly set in Panama. Individually they are fine, but the collection is too similar. Furthermore, the style lacks emotion, it is all very cerebral and bloodless.
August 12, 2021
ah, good not great. i liked the first two short stories though, cute lil doomed romances ☠️ all the stories were connected in tiny ways making panama seem like home despite the invasion in the foreground of the title novella.
July 21, 2007
What a debut! These short stories are excellent. I'm in awe of her ability to create a distinct voice for each story.
October 6, 2015
brilliant! she is worth reading!
July 11, 2018
A collection of short stories without much content. Even though I enjoy reading about far away places and other cultures which I did with this book, there wasn’t much depth.
June 30, 2015
Beautiful stories that illustrate Panama
March 24, 2021
“And I would discover how much of life is defined by what you want to keep and what you are forced to lose.”
I was surprised to see that I never reviewed this short story collection (plus a novella) on Goodreads. I read it many years ago but couldn't remember the stories so I decided to re-read it and actually write a review. I'm always somewhat biased when it comes to Henriquez's work because I'm Panamanian American and she's one of the few Panamanian American authors being published. Her stories and novels always automatically connect with me on a deeper level because I understand or ache to understand so many of the references she makes about Panama and our culture. That being said I can recognize that this isn't a stellar short story collection, some of the stories are weaker than others. Interestingly enough I didn't like "The Box House and the Snow" which a lot of people are raving about, it might help if I could dissect that story in a classroom or discussion based setting. It's unique, extremely creative and to me reflected how our culture treats women and daughters in particular but it's also very out of place in the collection. All of the stories are set in 1980s Panama except this one, the actual setting is never identified (although maybe it's based on Panama). It has a magical realism bent to it that just felt underdeveloped. I wish I could better explain why I didn't like it but perhaps it was just too literary for me. I also didn't care for "Chasing Birds" but that was because the story read (surprisingly) as very bland, it didn't add any extra depth to the unhappily married narrative.
Aside from the setting most of the stories also have share a theme of absentee fathers. It could have gotten old but each story handled the topic differently and honestly based on the stories my father, his brother and his mother share it seems very accurate. They often say it's well known that Panamanian men aren't known for being present or particularly caring husbands/partners. This is obviously a generalization but it didn't bother me that that generalization was present here because it felt laughably realistic. Especially because the women aren't all bogged down in despair about it, many of them shrug it off and keep life moving. The standout though was the titular novella where the father is very present and loving, he's openly affectionate towards his son even when feeling low, "but I knew he was feeling emotional about the move. I think he felt like he let go of his family by leaving that house. And if he wanted to hold on to me because I was still here and because he could then I would let him" (259). But the father's toxic masculinity resurfaces in a very different way and although it feels somewhat dramatic it also feels absolutely true and Panamanian. I've never lived in Panama but it seemed like Henriquez infused her story with so many essential aspects of Panamanian culture, such as this thought from one of her characters about the creation of a highway just for tourists, "But I guess real life is often unsightly, so they built a highway straight into the heart of the city to keep tourists away from what's real, away from the heart of us" (64, 'Drive'). Given the time period I would love to see Henriquez to do another collection set in Panama because the tourism boom has gotten even bigger and I think her sharp eye and pen would notice even more about the changing capital. I also liked that the stories didn't all take place in Panama City, readers start to gain an understanding of Panama's geography as the stories zip around the country.
COME TOGETHER, FALL APART is a striking set of short stories primarily about young working class Panamanian women dealing with displacement, dysfunctional families and disappointing relationships. Their humanity is vividly rendered, the writing simple, empathetic and precise. The endings of each story are also stunning, each concluding with clear and vivid final scenes that rely on mental imagery. I can't seem to break myself of the habit of picking a favorite short story, aside from the novella I loved "Mercury" but other than the aforementioned short stories I didn't like, I thoroughly enjoyed the rest. "Beautiful" absolutely wrecked me, it's quietly devastating and broke my heart. The political and personal realities revolve around economic instability under Noriega and the terror of the U.S. invasion along with more universal themes of complicated romantic and familial relationships. It's a beautiful collection of short stories about a country best known for its canal and yet blessedly never focuses on the canal.
OTHER FAVORITE LINES:
“Most memories might be like water, but some are like wood—solidly there that you can feel them and smell them and wrap your hands around them, and for a hundred years they will never go away.” (p. 65)
I was surprised to see that I never reviewed this short story collection (plus a novella) on Goodreads. I read it many years ago but couldn't remember the stories so I decided to re-read it and actually write a review. I'm always somewhat biased when it comes to Henriquez's work because I'm Panamanian American and she's one of the few Panamanian American authors being published. Her stories and novels always automatically connect with me on a deeper level because I understand or ache to understand so many of the references she makes about Panama and our culture. That being said I can recognize that this isn't a stellar short story collection, some of the stories are weaker than others. Interestingly enough I didn't like "The Box House and the Snow" which a lot of people are raving about, it might help if I could dissect that story in a classroom or discussion based setting. It's unique, extremely creative and to me reflected how our culture treats women and daughters in particular but it's also very out of place in the collection. All of the stories are set in 1980s Panama except this one, the actual setting is never identified (although maybe it's based on Panama). It has a magical realism bent to it that just felt underdeveloped. I wish I could better explain why I didn't like it but perhaps it was just too literary for me. I also didn't care for "Chasing Birds" but that was because the story read (surprisingly) as very bland, it didn't add any extra depth to the unhappily married narrative.
Aside from the setting most of the stories also have share a theme of absentee fathers. It could have gotten old but each story handled the topic differently and honestly based on the stories my father, his brother and his mother share it seems very accurate. They often say it's well known that Panamanian men aren't known for being present or particularly caring husbands/partners. This is obviously a generalization but it didn't bother me that that generalization was present here because it felt laughably realistic. Especially because the women aren't all bogged down in despair about it, many of them shrug it off and keep life moving. The standout though was the titular novella where the father is very present and loving, he's openly affectionate towards his son even when feeling low, "but I knew he was feeling emotional about the move. I think he felt like he let go of his family by leaving that house. And if he wanted to hold on to me because I was still here and because he could then I would let him" (259). But the father's toxic masculinity resurfaces in a very different way and although it feels somewhat dramatic it also feels absolutely true and Panamanian. I've never lived in Panama but it seemed like Henriquez infused her story with so many essential aspects of Panamanian culture, such as this thought from one of her characters about the creation of a highway just for tourists, "But I guess real life is often unsightly, so they built a highway straight into the heart of the city to keep tourists away from what's real, away from the heart of us" (64, 'Drive'). Given the time period I would love to see Henriquez to do another collection set in Panama because the tourism boom has gotten even bigger and I think her sharp eye and pen would notice even more about the changing capital. I also liked that the stories didn't all take place in Panama City, readers start to gain an understanding of Panama's geography as the stories zip around the country.
COME TOGETHER, FALL APART is a striking set of short stories primarily about young working class Panamanian women dealing with displacement, dysfunctional families and disappointing relationships. Their humanity is vividly rendered, the writing simple, empathetic and precise. The endings of each story are also stunning, each concluding with clear and vivid final scenes that rely on mental imagery. I can't seem to break myself of the habit of picking a favorite short story, aside from the novella I loved "Mercury" but other than the aforementioned short stories I didn't like, I thoroughly enjoyed the rest. "Beautiful" absolutely wrecked me, it's quietly devastating and broke my heart. The political and personal realities revolve around economic instability under Noriega and the terror of the U.S. invasion along with more universal themes of complicated romantic and familial relationships. It's a beautiful collection of short stories about a country best known for its canal and yet blessedly never focuses on the canal.
OTHER FAVORITE LINES:
“Most memories might be like water, but some are like wood—solidly there that you can feel them and smell them and wrap your hands around them, and for a hundred years they will never go away.” (p. 65)
April 20, 2023
I've already spent three full days in Panama, without ever sleeping there. Not that I partied all night. Rather, I enjoyed three long layovers when I flew with the national airline Copa to destinations further south in Latin America. On my first visit, which was quite short, I took a cab to see the Panama Canal and its locks, a superb engineering feat. A few months ago, I had two long stopovers there. First, I took an early morning stroll through Casco Viejo, the very elegant historic center of Panama City, before taking a boat to spend a few hours on Taboga Island, twenty kilometers off the Pacific Coast. It was on Taboga that Paul Gauguin spent his convalescence after working on the construction of the Canal and falling ill. On the return trip, I made my first birding observations in the Soberanía National Park along the Camino del Oleoducto (Pipeline Road), where a record number of different birds have been catalogued.
I reencountered all of these places in the two books I have read, and which are located in this small country offering a great variety of attractions. "Coming Together, Fall Apart" is a beautiful collection of short stories, the first publication of Cristina Henriquez, an American novelist of Panamanian origin, who writes in English.
The island of Taboga is the setting for the short story "The Wide, Pale Ocean". In front of her daughter Ysabel, as she leaves the church, all white in the sun-warmed square, the parish priest asks Gabriella if she will play the role of Mary in the Easter procession.
"The Virgin or Mary Magdalene?" asks Gabriella.
"La Virgen" answers Father Castillo. In this moving short story, Ysabel tells the story of her mother, a young islander who was seduced at a very young age by an elegant man from the capital whom she never saw again. Mother and daughter are very close and like to bath in the waves of the ocean.
In "Chasing Birds," Harvey and June are two middle-aged Americans from the Midwest who have come to Panama to observe tropical birds. Their guide takes them to the Camino del Oleoducto or by boat on the river near the canal. Harvey has eyes only for the colorful birds, while his wife is bored and can't stop thinking about Diego, the employee at their hotel with whom she danced and exchanged a furtive kiss.
In the last and longest story, which gives the book its title, Cristina Henriquez tells with finesse and emotion, through the eyes of a teenager whose family has to move because of a real estate development, the events of the end of 1989 when the Americans landed in Panama City to oust the dictator Manuel Noriega and, in the process, burn the neighborhood of El Chorillo and its wooden houses.
http://www.travelreadings.org/2023/02...
I reencountered all of these places in the two books I have read, and which are located in this small country offering a great variety of attractions. "Coming Together, Fall Apart" is a beautiful collection of short stories, the first publication of Cristina Henriquez, an American novelist of Panamanian origin, who writes in English.
The island of Taboga is the setting for the short story "The Wide, Pale Ocean". In front of her daughter Ysabel, as she leaves the church, all white in the sun-warmed square, the parish priest asks Gabriella if she will play the role of Mary in the Easter procession.
"The Virgin or Mary Magdalene?" asks Gabriella.
"La Virgen" answers Father Castillo. In this moving short story, Ysabel tells the story of her mother, a young islander who was seduced at a very young age by an elegant man from the capital whom she never saw again. Mother and daughter are very close and like to bath in the waves of the ocean.
In "Chasing Birds," Harvey and June are two middle-aged Americans from the Midwest who have come to Panama to observe tropical birds. Their guide takes them to the Camino del Oleoducto or by boat on the river near the canal. Harvey has eyes only for the colorful birds, while his wife is bored and can't stop thinking about Diego, the employee at their hotel with whom she danced and exchanged a furtive kiss.
In the last and longest story, which gives the book its title, Cristina Henriquez tells with finesse and emotion, through the eyes of a teenager whose family has to move because of a real estate development, the events of the end of 1989 when the Americans landed in Panama City to oust the dictator Manuel Noriega and, in the process, burn the neighborhood of El Chorillo and its wooden houses.
http://www.travelreadings.org/2023/02...
May 7, 2025
CW That I Found: Alcohol, Child abuse, Death of a parent, Incest, Pedophilia, Rape, Sexism, Sexual assault, Sexual violence, Suicidal thoughts, Suicide, War
I read this one for a class this semester, and I enjoyed it. Personally, Beautiful was very touching to me, especially given my own childhood assault history. In Beautiful by Cristina Henriquez, we get to see the world through the eyes of a young girl named Rosa. Rosa's uncle won a lot of money in the lottery and wants to take her out to get a new dress. Throughout the whole scene, she is trying on dresses and talking with her uncle and the sales clerk. She is told how beautiful she is, which makes her feel very proud. After her father returns to her life, he continues to tell her how beautiful she is. I think in this context the word choice is really important, especially for the ending of the story. Being 'beautiful' is different from being 'pretty', little girls are pretty women and beautiful. Being viewed as beautiful makes Rosa feel grown up despite the fact that she is only around eight or nine when the story takes place. When she is later assaulted by her father, she realizes the dangers of being seen as beautiful and doesn't want to be seen that way anymore. She thinks that she would give away her new dress, a symbol of the beauty that everyone has been seeing and talking about, just to make him stop. When he does stop, she even cuts off her hair that he grabbed, another symbol of her beauty. This leads the ending line of Rosa feeling the most beautiful that she's ever been to be more than just about her appearance but that she feels the most like a woman, rather than a girl, than she ever has with the knowing look from her father on her and the judgemental statements and glares from her mother. In a way, she has learned what so many assault victims learn: men will prey on beautiful women, and women will judge you for it.
I read this one for a class this semester, and I enjoyed it. Personally, Beautiful was very touching to me, especially given my own childhood assault history. In Beautiful by Cristina Henriquez, we get to see the world through the eyes of a young girl named Rosa. Rosa's uncle won a lot of money in the lottery and wants to take her out to get a new dress. Throughout the whole scene, she is trying on dresses and talking with her uncle and the sales clerk. She is told how beautiful she is, which makes her feel very proud. After her father returns to her life, he continues to tell her how beautiful she is. I think in this context the word choice is really important, especially for the ending of the story. Being 'beautiful' is different from being 'pretty', little girls are pretty women and beautiful. Being viewed as beautiful makes Rosa feel grown up despite the fact that she is only around eight or nine when the story takes place. When she is later assaulted by her father, she realizes the dangers of being seen as beautiful and doesn't want to be seen that way anymore. She thinks that she would give away her new dress, a symbol of the beauty that everyone has been seeing and talking about, just to make him stop. When he does stop, she even cuts off her hair that he grabbed, another symbol of her beauty. This leads the ending line of Rosa feeling the most beautiful that she's ever been to be more than just about her appearance but that she feels the most like a woman, rather than a girl, than she ever has with the knowing look from her father on her and the judgemental statements and glares from her mother. In a way, she has learned what so many assault victims learn: men will prey on beautiful women, and women will judge you for it.
September 13, 2020
As a soon-to-be Panama expat, I'm soaking up all I can read about my new country. Come Together, Fall Apart is a book of short stories (and one long one) set in Panamá, mostly in the 1980s. Unlike the other books I've read to date, this one gives a peek into the lives of regular people living in different parts of the country.
In most of the stories, the main character is a young woman dealing with relationship issues. A little warning to men...with little exception, you guys don't come off too well in almost all of the stories. I'm left wondering if this is a cultural thing or purely coming from the author (I tend to suspect the former). Each story also makes it abundantly clear how hot and humid it is there! 😅
I'm not a fan of short stories and this book reminded me why. I would often get characters and storylines confused as I transitioned fairly quickly through each one and, just when I was connecting to the characters, the story would often abruptly end without much resolution. However, in this case, I didn't mind a bit as it definitely helped me accomplish my goal of getting to know Panamanian people and culture.
In most of the stories, the main character is a young woman dealing with relationship issues. A little warning to men...with little exception, you guys don't come off too well in almost all of the stories. I'm left wondering if this is a cultural thing or purely coming from the author (I tend to suspect the former). Each story also makes it abundantly clear how hot and humid it is there! 😅
I'm not a fan of short stories and this book reminded me why. I would often get characters and storylines confused as I transitioned fairly quickly through each one and, just when I was connecting to the characters, the story would often abruptly end without much resolution. However, in this case, I didn't mind a bit as it definitely helped me accomplish my goal of getting to know Panamanian people and culture.
July 28, 2021
Such an impressive collection of stories! Mainly about young women in Panama, the writing is simple and readable although Cristina Henriquez has a great way of starting stories as though she is continuing one, for example, ‘And then that summer when the heat felt like wading through molasses...’. The stories too are simple about lives where love, family, work and money are all important while occasionally, and in particular in the titular story, Panama’s contentious history is part of them too. There is one story with an American couple and another which reads like a fable but all concern women and the part they play in family and in relationships. The novella is the only story where our main character is a boy and after enjoying the short stories so much, this wasn’t as successful although it is set during the period of the American invasion of Panama which I knew little about. The stories are structured so well that there is none of that abrupt ending that can happen with short stories and you end each one thoroughly satisfied.
March 4, 2022
"And I would discover how much of life is defined by what you want to keep and what you are forced to lose."
Ik heb genoten van deze bundel. Hier komen eenvoudige mensen aan bod, geen arrogante toeristen, geen rijkaards, maar gewone mensen die liefhebben, die willen liefhebben, die met elkaar omgaan en elkaar verliezen.
Het zijn mooie, goed geschreven verhalen waarin de psychologie en de gevoelens van de personages eerst aan bod komen.
De finale novelle speelt zich af tijdens de inval van de Amerikanen in Panama eind 1989 toen Noriega ten val gebracht werd, maar ook hier is deze historische gebeurtenis niet meer dan een fait divers dat als achtergrond dient voor de belevenissen van een familie.
Ik heb genoten van deze bundel. Hier komen eenvoudige mensen aan bod, geen arrogante toeristen, geen rijkaards, maar gewone mensen die liefhebben, die willen liefhebben, die met elkaar omgaan en elkaar verliezen.
Het zijn mooie, goed geschreven verhalen waarin de psychologie en de gevoelens van de personages eerst aan bod komen.
De finale novelle speelt zich af tijdens de inval van de Amerikanen in Panama eind 1989 toen Noriega ten val gebracht werd, maar ook hier is deze historische gebeurtenis niet meer dan een fait divers dat als achtergrond dient voor de belevenissen van een familie.
November 21, 2024
“If the father had raised his hands to his mouth, he would have tasted the salt of the daughter's tears, but he didn't. He simply scooped the water over and over with his hands, his back rounded, his head sinking farther into his chest…It's the wood, the father said. It's too wet now. The walls are too soft. They'll fall in soon. She let it through, he whispered. The daughter, her slender arms strained under the weight of the house, her tears long since dry, was too exhausted to speak. She simply stared at the father and held up the ceiling.” (98)
November 30, 2017
Christina Henriquez is a lovely writer -- these stories, taking place in Panama, are earlier than The Book of Unknown Americans (and to my mind, not quite as impelling) but still terrific.
She describes her settings and people vividly, but sparely. A wonderful ability to bring to life milieux and people far from our (or at least my) normal existence.
She describes her settings and people vividly, but sparely. A wonderful ability to bring to life milieux and people far from our (or at least my) normal existence.
May 7, 2023
3.5/5
This was an easy read and I liked how the atmosphere/setting informed all the stories. At times I was not fully engaged, and not all of the short stories spoke to me. Probably wouldn’t read again, but it was an interesting perspective and look into Panamanian relationships, family structures, and their way of life.
This was an easy read and I liked how the atmosphere/setting informed all the stories. At times I was not fully engaged, and not all of the short stories spoke to me. Probably wouldn’t read again, but it was an interesting perspective and look into Panamanian relationships, family structures, and their way of life.
July 4, 2024
68% A perfectly fine book.
Some of these stories are quite simple slice-of-life type affairs, others have a darker tinge, they are all perfectly readable, and I enjoyed them all in their own way, but not really shone. The best is the novella at the end. being set during the American invasion this offers an interesting persepctive.
Some of these stories are quite simple slice-of-life type affairs, others have a darker tinge, they are all perfectly readable, and I enjoyed them all in their own way, but not really shone. The best is the novella at the end. being set during the American invasion this offers an interesting persepctive.
April 10, 2020
This is full of women voices! Want to visit Panama? Read this.
English: https://elifthereader.com/books/come-...
Türkçe: https://kitaplikkedisi.com/kitaplar/c...
English: https://elifthereader.com/books/come-...
Türkçe: https://kitaplikkedisi.com/kitaplar/c...
January 8, 2018
This is Henriquez’s first published work, a collection of short stories that is uneven but also forecasts the promise that her later novels bear out.
September 28, 2019
4/5
I am so glad to have stumbled upon Cristina’s earlier works. I find short stories so interesting and when they are set in a country as interesting as Panama I knew I would really enjoy this set.
I am so glad to have stumbled upon Cristina’s earlier works. I find short stories so interesting and when they are set in a country as interesting as Panama I knew I would really enjoy this set.
November 9, 2020
I couldn't finish this. It all felt rushed and it didn't give the space nor color to give more depth to the characters. Overall, it was overly simplistic and left me underwhelmed.
January 23, 2022
3.5 - solid collection of stories tied to Panama and with lots of strong female characters.
April 6, 2022
Beautiful portraits of life that drew painful sympathy
April 14, 2022
Enjoyed these stories about life in Panama. The last one took my breath away.
April 15, 2022
The Box House and the Snow was my most favorite.
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