Jose Builds a Woman

by Jan Baross

Mesmerizing! Stunning! Elegant! Captivating! Powerful! Lush! A winner! Magical realism that seduces the reader from beginning to end! When Ooligan's acquisitions committee discussed this marvelous first novel by Portland photographer/painter/dramatist Baross, the superlatives and exclamations wouldn't stop. Word spread, and soon Ooligan's other student publishers were waiting in line to read this novel set in a fictional Mexican coastal village. Jose is the story of Tortugina, the narrator, whose happiness and hardship are tied to the sea and to the men in her life, from her demanding father and dead lover to her cruel, abusive husband and beautiful, sensitive son.

Genres: Fiction, Magical Realism

336 pages, Paperback

First published August 1, 2006

Reviews

[S · Rating 2 out of 5]

Here is a book I picked up because it was sitting there in the library when looking for something else.

It tells the story of a troublesome girl in some vaguely Mexican place who gets foisted on some passerby to get her out of the hair of her longish-suffering parents. But actually she's married to a ghost or something.

I couldn't really get behind this book. First, it's set in Mexico (I guess), but the thing was clearly not written by someone who knew a whole lot about there. I could set that aside until one point where they are taking a picture and the photographer tells them to say . . . "queso." Second, this book seems to want to be one of those girl-has-aspirations-she-is-denied-because-she-is-a-girl and then veers wildly into dang-ol-girl-should-of-ought-to-have-listened-to-her-patriarchy territory. The most egregious example of this is that despite the fact that main character was forced into a loveless marriage that she resents and that ends badly, at the end of the book, she works her absolute darndest to force the girl her little weak-hearted boy has fallen for into marriage with him. Apparently, in pretend Mexico, we don't have irony. That, or the main character is, in fact, as dumb as she seems and deserves every bit of heartache she kind of . . . blithy . . . suffers.

Anyway. I looked on the back of the book and apparently it came from a publishing house that publishes student work as an exercise in professionalism, so I suppose I should be kind. How this book ended up in that particular library (or with a blurb from LeGuin on the back!), I'll never know.

[The Cute Little Brown-haired girl · Rating 5 out of 5]

Ok, so I helped co-edit it so I am biased. But seriously, this is one fun book to read and if you ever go to Spain or Mexico on vacation, you have to take this with you! Or, you can have your own romantic magical adult fairytale from the comfort of your own couch in your p.j.'s. Just read it!!!!!

[E.D. Watson · Rating 4 out of 5]

An imaginative retelling of the Immaculate Conception set in another time and place, Jose Builds a Woman speaks to the complexity of mother-love, and the obsessive, possessive forms it sometimes takes. Baross has woven a rich and colorful account of the village outcast, Tortugina, who conceives a son with the ghost of a boy whose death she inadvertently causes. Faced with life in a convent or marriage to a stranger, Tortugina chooses marriage to legitimize her son. It is a loveless union, in which Tortugina fails to conceive other children. Her son, Jose, is the man in her life, and together with the ghost of her first love, they make up a kind of rag-tag Holy Trinity. By the end of the book, Tortugina and Jose fight for their lives inside the belly of a giant statue of the Virgin, where the ghost of Jose's father appears to him for the first time. It's a gorgeous book, full of wonder and layers and symbolism, and bits of prose so beautiful I got shivers. If every book I read this year is this good, then 2018 is off to a brilliant start.

[Alan Spinrad · Rating 4 out of 5]

Strong hint of Dona Flor in this amusing tale. The living are dead and the dead are alive and always the twain shall meet. Well, I´ve confused myself, but I´m smiling.

[Ace McGee · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mystical fantasy set in rural Mexico. Curses, early deaths, ghosts, out of body experiences, great artisans.


My trip to Oregon local author. Used from Powell’s and autographed.

[G Kembel · Rating 5 out of 5]

I am not usually a fan of magic realism, but I was totally engaged by the characters, their family/ village environment and the propulsion of the plot.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Fanciful and fantastic, magical and wise about love and loss, Jan Baross' novel is an entertaining, full-bodied debut.

Baross mixes real emotion with magical realism and stirs. The result is a captivating and entertaining page-turner, where chapter after chapter, the unexpected rises from the depths of the author's imagination and lands vividly on the page. The language also has a light and airy quality, possibly influenced by the fact that one of the main characters is a deftly drawn ghost, who is heartbroken but also comic in his attempts to connect with and control the world that has continued onward after his death.

Bravo to Ooligan Press for choosing this luminous novel and bringing it into the world. I'd recommend it to readers who like well-written literary fiction that has a spring in its step.

[Leslie Lee · Rating 4 out of 5]

If you enjoy magical realism this book will delight you. I met the author recently and she gave me a copy; I did not expect much and was so pleased to find myself sucked into the story, the language, the places, the characters and the MAGIC. Erotic and exotic, funny and heartbreaking. An excellent debut - I hope she is writing another.

[kates · Rating 4 out of 5]

I wrote a review and goodreads deleted it. I hate that.

This book is awesome, and a fast read.

[Katherine]

I'm loving it so far. Very poetic writer but not too much so. The girl is a beautiful character. I relate to her. This book is also very sexy.

[Amy M · Rating 3 out of 5]

A lush, fantastical foray into what else: the vagaries of life & love. Nicely done.