South Atlantic Review
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South Atlantic Review Spring 2020 Volume Number 1 85 Journal of the South Atlantic Modern Language Association Editor R. Barton Palmer About South Atlantic Review [email protected] ince its founding in 1935 as the newsletter for the South Associate Editor Atlantic Modern Language Association, South Atlantic Marta Hess S Review has become a premier academic quarterly publish- ing research in the modern languages and literatures, as well as in associated fields such as film, cultural studies, Reviews Editor and rhetoric/composition. The journal welcomes submis- Daniel Marshall sions of essays, maximum length 8,000 words, that are accessible, and of broad interest, to its diverse readership across a number of disciplines. Submissions may be made electronically directly to the managing editor at the ad- Managing Editor dress above. SAR also welcomes proposals for special is- M. Allison Wise sues and special focus sections. Additional information regarding submission require- ments and book reviews can be found on our website at http://samla.memberclicks.net/sar. In Appreciation. South Atlantic Review wishes to ac- knowledge the generous contributions and support pro- vided by Ashley Cowden Fisk, Michael LeMahieu, Cam- eron Bushnell, and the Pearce Center for Professional Communication at Clemson University, by the Clemson University Department of English chaired by Lee Mor- rissey, and by the College of Arts, Architecture, and the Humanities. About SAMLA https://samla.memberclicks.net [email protected] embership. Annual membership dues for SAMLA: M$35 for a student membership; $40 for an adjunct, lecturer, emeritus, or independent scholar membership; and $50-70 for a full-time faculty membership. All mem- berships are annual with terms running from October 1 to September 30. Institutional subscriptions are $80 per year. The views contained herein represent the Membership forms are available on the SAMLA website opinions of the authors whose names appear above. All inquiries may be directed to [email protected]; on each submission and not the Board of SAMLA, PO Box 3968, Atlanta, GA, 30302-3968; or 404- Regents of the University System of Georgia, Georgia State University, Clemson University, 413-5816. the editors of South Atlantic Review, or the SAMLA Annual Convention. Information regarding Executive Committee Members of SAMLA. the annual convention is available on the SAMLA website. © 2020 by the South Atlantic Modern Language Association Editorial Board David Bottoms, Department of English, Georgia State University Tom Conner, Department of Modern Languages and Literatures, St. Norbert College Thomas Leitch, Department of English, University of Delaware Christina R. McDonald, English, Rhetoric, and Humanistic Studies, Virginia Military Institute Rafael Ocasio, Department of Spanish, Agnes Scott College Tison Pugh, Department of English, University of Central Florida Lynn Ramey, Department of French, Vanderbilt University R. Allen Shoaf, Department of English, University of Florida Rhondda Robinson Thomas, Department of English, Clemson University Kathleen Blake Yancey, Department of English, Florida State University Contents Special Issue: Lorraine M. López Guest Editors Tanya Long Bennett, Cameron Williams Crawford, Donna A. Gessell, and Laura J. Getty Introductions 1 Lorraine M. López: A Personal Introduction to an Out- standing Latina Literary and Cultural Studies Critic and Fiction Writer Rafael Ocasio 7 A Note from the Guest Editors Tanya Long Bennett, Cameron Williams Crawford, Donna A. Gessell, and Laura J. Getty Critical Articles 14 “I Loved to Cook, to Conjure Up My Mother’s Fragrance”: Food, Gender, and Identity in Lorraine M. López’s The Gifted Gabaldón Sisters Cameron Williams Crawford 27 To Tell What Is True: The Short Story as Stark Mirror in Lorraine López’s Homicide Survivors Picnic and Other Stories Tanya Long Bennett 43 Good Woman versus Good Person: Resisting Stereotypes in Lorraine M. López’s The Realm of Hungry Spirits Laura J. Getty 63 The [Latinx] Darling: Lorraine López Reads the Canon Donna A. Gessell Reviews 82 Daring to be Different: A Review of The Darling Lyn Froehlich Contents 86 “If you are anything like me,” You Don’t Belong Where You Belong: A Review of Lorraine López’s Soy La Avon Lady and Other Stories Angela Love Kitchin Short Story 90 Careful Interventions Lorraine M. López 2018 SAMLA Graduate Student Creative Writing Award: Honorable Mention 109 Coop Kristy Maier Book Review 113 From Alice to Algernon: The Evolution of Child Consciousness in the Novel. By Holly Blackford. Reviewed by Caesar Perkowski Lorraine M. López: A Personal Introduction to an Outstanding Latina Literary and Cultural Studies Critic and Fiction Writer1 Rafael Ocasio r. Lorraine M. López, the Gertrude Conaway Professor of English Dat Vanderbilt University, where she teaches in the Creative Writing Program, formally came into my life as a literary critic when, several years ago, she invited me to contribute to a collection of essays that she was co-organizing in honor of writer Judith Ortiz Cofer. To say that I was honored to get such an invitation was, as it is commonly expressed, an understatement. For years I had known about her through Ortiz Cofer, who often referred to her as “my friend Lorraine” in our many conversations about her professional connections with Latino and Latina writers. They indeed had a close friendship. Ortiz Cofer had been her mentor at the University of Georgia, where López received a doctorate in creative writing. I too was a friend of Judith, whom I had met in Atlanta in 1989, the year her first novel was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. As she had been for López, Judith became my mentor. We often met in formal interview sessions at the University of Georgia, where she excitedly spoke about her growing network of Latino and Latina writers, who were actively creating a rising literature, known today as Latinx. López’s fiction was always Judith’s favorite topic of discussion. Judith was over the moon when López won Curbstone Press’s inau- gural Miguel Mármol prize for fiction for Soy la Avon Lady and Other Stories (2002), López’s first published short story collection. After hearing Judith’s rave review, followed by, “this is a must read, mi’jo,” I knew I had to read it. This humorously-titled collection has left me hooked on López’s short fiction ever since. López’s second book, the novel Call Me Henri (2006), published by Northwestern University Press, was awarded the Paterson Prize for Young Adult Literature. Her short story collection Homicide Survivors Picnic won the Writers League of Texas Award and was named a finalist for the 2010 PEN/Faulkner Prize. A prolific fiction writer, López’s most recent novels include The Gifted Gabaldón Sisters (2008), The Realm 1 Rafael Ocasio of Hungry Spirits (2011), and The Darling (2015), a finalist for Foreword Review’s INDIEFAB Book of the Year Award and a 2016 book club selec- tion by Las Comadres and Friends National Latino Book Club. As a Latin American literature scholar, I am most familiar with López’s critical work. Her collections An Angle of Vision: Women Writers on Their Poor or Working-Class Roots (2009) and The Other Latin@: Writing against a Singular Identity (2001) bring together voices of writers from a variety of racial, economic, and sexual orien- tation backgrounds who must navigate socio-economic institutions that, plainly put, work against them. It is often an overwhelming task. In spite of my own condition as a person of color, however, some of the experiences detailed are ones I have not fully experienced as a cisgen- der man. Unsurprisingly, my Latina students at Agnes Scott College have read—actually devoured—the articles from this collection, which serve as a “road map” to navigating the patriarchal limits imposed upon them as women of color. In the words of López, “A writer is an author in a literal sense, often while also claiming authority over her own life. Even so, leaving poverty and powerlessness behind is no easy feat. Many never have the opportunity to attempt it, and few succeed” (“Introduction: Joining the Conversation” 3). López’s passion and the crux of her literary craft lies in her under- scoring women of color’s life experiences as examples of effective tools for social change. The proclaimed activism of López, both as a writer and a critic, have appealed to me as a guiding North star. As the first Latino and Queer faculty ever granted tenure at Agnes Scott, I have come to understand—rather, to experience—the many facets, often contradictory, behind my own categorization as Latino and Queer, both in terms of a racialized and social label. Boldly, López has taken el toro por los cuernos (“the bull by its horns”); she has called for the need of a critical analysis of the ideological implications of the term Latino: All Latinos share some Latin American heritage. Apart from this, there is no essential or singular trait of Latino identity. Nonetheless, in the United States, Latinos or Hispanics are often viewed as a monolithic and homogeneous group. Of course, this is an impossibly narrow categorization, an imagi- nary space for filing diverse people in a singular slot for pur- poses of fast access and easy comprehension. (Falconer and López 1) Nonetheless, I am also mindful that as a Puerto Rican-born person, my handling of the term takes a different socio-political connotation. In the words of López, “Many Latinos are likewise complicit in construct- 2 South Atlantic Review ing this fictive categorization in order to create the illusion of solidar- ity, the myth of unanimity that promises national political power” (1). Indeed, López’s powerful statement was in my mind during my formal conversations with Judith, whose literary work I solidly categorized and analyzed as Puerto Rican, not as Latino, given her strong reflection on and her frequent representations of those Puerto Rican cultural practices that survived the so-called Puerto Rican immigrant experi- ence in the United States.