In the tradition of Richard Rodriguez's A Hunger for Memory, a rich, resonant portrait of a child who must come to terms with being neither North nor South American, but a mixture of both.From her father's rich Peruvian family, Marie Arana learned to be seen and not heard. From her mother's cowboy father she learned to shoot a gun and break a horse. As a child she shuttled between two very different cultures. But when she moved to the U.S. for good, she had to come to terms with an identity split in half, and find a new self-image that made her feel whole; a New World fusion -- an American Chica. Distributed by Syndetic Solutions, Inc.

Though this memoir of growing up in America and Peru centers on Arana's parents' turbulent marriage, her real focus is the way cultures define, limit and enrich us. At one point, Arana, whose mother is American and father is Peruvian, recalls her first lesson in the color politics of Latin America. She was living in a gated house, in a factory town high in the Andes, and wanted to invite the daughter of the family cook to her birthday party. Of course she can come, said Arana's mother, but if she does, none of the mothers of the other little girls will allow them to attend; an Indian girl is not accepted at a party of aristocratic schoolchildren. "I am reminded of my political innocence," Arana writes, "when I go to Latino conferences in [the U.S.]. When I see the children of Spanish-blooded oligarchs line up alongside migrant workers for a piece of affirmative action." It is this willingness to slice through convenient classifications, to see the rifts in every group, that distinguishes Arana's account of how she learned to navigate between a culture that encouraged family loyalty and another that fostered independence. She writes beautifully, whether describing hunting for ghosts in Peru's highlands, chewing tobacco in Wyoming, attending an American school in Lima or finding friends in New Jersey. Arana, the editor of the Washington Post Book World, blends a journalist's dedication to research with a style that sings with humor. Her memoir is an outstanding contribution to the growing shelf of Latina literature. Agent, Amanda Urban. Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Those who have lived life trying to bridge two different worlds will find that Arana's intimate and intelligent memoir captures exactly the pulse of a changing America. In the mid-1940s, Arana's Peruvian father, an upper-class, MIT-educated engineer, married a free-spirited Wyoming musician and brought her back to his homeland to raise their three children. Told from the perspective of a precocious young Arana, who is learning that she has to navigate constantly between her inner two selves the "wild American" and the "lady-like Latina" the first chapters recount an idyllic childhood in Peru. But eventually, circumstance leads her to trace her lineage back to the infamous Julio Cesar Arana, who turned a profitable rubber business at the edge of the Amazon into a virtual human slaughterhouse, and Arana reveals the legacy of shame surrounding her surname. Arana expertly juggles the good vs. evil elements essential to any coming-of-age story and forays effortlessly into mystical moments. Toward the end, her themes begin to feel repetitive, but her story still manages to grip you. Finally able to connect the pieces of her family's history, she likens Peru's earthquakes to her parents' love, in which "two force fields meet and you have confrontation." With her first book, Arana, who is editor of the Washington Post Book World, clearly demonstrates her ability to write crystalline prose and make erudite cultural observations. Recommended for all libraries. [Previewed in Prepub Alert, LJ 1/01.] Adriana Lopez, "Crticas"Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information

Adult/High School-Arana, editor of the Washington Post Book World, recently described this memoir as a love story. It is fraught with the tension of two worlds colliding: her North American mother's independent, free-spirited individualism crashes into her South American father's traditional, family-based orientation. Their children formed the bicultural bridge between them. In rich, lyrical prose, the author details her privileged, Peruvian childhood, watched by amas, and schooled at home. She writes of her grandfather who lived like a hermit in his own house, and further back the ancestors who played a horrifying role on Peru's rubber plantations. She describes the scent of sugar, "raw, rough, Cartavio brown" from her father's factory; the sounds of "El Gringo," the crazy blind man on his daily rounds; and the surreal world of los pishtacos, the ghosts, so mystifying, but terrifyingly real to Arana. She also writes of her mother and her former marriages, and finally of her life in America. Here Arana is an American Chica, where she leads not a double life, sometimes in her "American skin" at other times she is a Latina, but a triple life in which she makes up a "whole new person." While this book, filled with humor and insight, will be of special interest to Hispanic teens, it is a sparkling addition to the story of America's "salad bowl" and will appeal to young people of all heritages.-Jane S. Drabkin, Chinn Park Regional Library, Prince William, VACopyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc. From: Reed Elsevier Inc. Copyright Reed Business Information