In Nueva York

by Nicholasa Mohr

Interrelated stories of love, friendship, and the struggle to survive show the tragic and comic sides of life in a Puerto Rican community on New York's Lower East Side.

Winner of the School Library Journal's Best Book for Young Adults (1977) and the Notable Trade Book Award (1977).

Genres: Short Stories

Paperback

First published January 1, 1977

About the author

Nicholasa Mohr (born November 1, 1938) is one of the best known Nuyorican writers. Her works tell of growing up in the Puerto Rican communities of the Bronx and El Barrio and of the difficulties Puerto Rican women face in the United States. She was raised in the Bronx. From 1988 through 1991, she taught at Queens College, City University of New York. From 1994 through 1995, she was Writer-in-Residence at Richmond College, the American University in London.

Reviews

[Alison · Rating 5 out of 5]

Amazing collection of interlocking short stories by a woman known as the best female writer of the Puerto Rican diaspora. Poignant and beautiful in the midst of stark and ugly, these stories evoke complex emotions that compelled me to stop and consider.

[Lauren · Rating 5 out of 5]

More than five stars. I started reading this book and didn’t want it to end. And then there came the point where I couldn’t put it down. What first appeared to be short stories soon developed into connected relationships, a brilliantly woven tapestry of masterful writing. My thanks to this author as I end this book in search of her next work.

[Rosa · Rating 4 out of 5]

Related stories, some very good but all worth reading for continuity. Written in “Spanglish”, lovely in that it blends spanish words with the english in the sentences.

[Luke Hillier · Rating 2 out of 5]

I sought out "In Nueva York" after reading Now We Will Be Happy last year and absolutely loving it. The premises are nearly identical; both are collections of short stories following intersecting Puerto Rican characters living in New York City (with a bit more geographic and character diversity from Gautier). As someone who lives in a neighborhood of Philadelphia with a significant Puerto Rican population, I was blown away by the amount of resonance and reflection I found from reading Gautier's stories, and when I heard that another collection written a few decades prior had the same focus I decided to give it a go.

Unfortunately, these stories didn't hold up nearly as well. I found there to be a general lack of artfulness or intentionality with the writing; everything is discussed in a very straightforward manner that's definitely easy to read but pretty unmemorable. The dialogue is what hurt it the most for me, though. While I appreciated the frequent inclusion of Spanish colloquialisms ("Ave Maria" is probably said more than any other phrase in the book), there was a stiffness, formality, and blandness to all of the conversations in spite of that and they never felt like authentic interactions. Furthermore, I think what made Gautier's stories work so well was the recurring inclusion of different Puerto Rican meals and dishes as a sort of anchor that helped to establish and root the characters in their cultural identity (and simply as a compelling sensory detail) whereas that just wasn't the case here (in spite of quite a few stories being centered around meals/taking place at a luncheonette). Truthfully, without the sensory-dense storytelling, there was far less resonance and familiarity for me while reading through these, in spite of nearly identical settings.

With that said, I didn't mind reading the stories and even enjoyed them overall. Thinking of the collection as a whole, I do think that something interesting and really thoughtful was being said about the experience of disapora (all of the characters, but especially the recently relocated Lali and William who we watch assimilate while simultaneously longing for PR) by connecting it with more general experiences of being a cultural outsider (William being a dwarf, the inclusion of a gay and a lesbian couple) and a feeling of grieving what's been lost (literally, a mother grieving her son after he's been killed or the story of the young girl who goes missing). The stories themselves don't offer too much to chew on, but the characters were likable enough and I think Mohr was wise to keep the cast pretty interconnected and even cycle through a core few while still using a short-story format. We really get the sense that we have a deep connection with one unique block of the Lower East Side (the one haunted by that damn orange cat) and I found that rewarding by the end.

[Ryl · Rating 4 out of 5]

In Nueva York is a collection of interrelated short stories focused on a neighborhood in the Lower East Side of New York City. The center of the neighborhood is Rudi’s Luncheonette, which serves as the setting for most of the stories in the collection. Most of the main characters work at the Luncheonette: Rudi, the proprietor; his second wife Lali, a young woman newly arrived from the island; and Chiquitín (William), a dwarf who has also recently come from the island to find his long-lost mother, Old Mary. The stories in the collection range from the everyday experiences of the people in the neighborhood, such as planning weddings or taking English classes, to the crises that change the way the neighbors interact with each other, such as the robbery of the Luncheonette and Lali’s infidelity. Taken as a whole the stories highlight the struggles and triumphs of life in a Puerto Rican neighborhood and emphasize the accommodations that people from various backgrounds must make in order to live peacefully together in the middle of a large American city.

[Allan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really sweet and sentimental book. I was reminded a bit of my own childhood growing up in Bronx, as part of the New York Puerto Rican community. The chapters are more like separate short stories, linked together by the location; the Lower East Side of NY. This world no longer exists, and I enjoyed being taken back there again.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Lexile 580