Sandra Benitez Books

There is no bigger influence in a girl's life than her mother. "Riding Shotgun: Women Write About Their Mothers" is an anthology of twenty-one pieces from women writers discussing the enigmas that are their mothers. Be it simple wisdom such as cooking or skill to win at scrabble every single time, these stories of mothers are heartwarming and charming, and will bring a smile to the face of any reader. "Riding Shotgun: Women Write About Their Mothers" is deftly compiled and highly recommended for community library women's studies collections.

Riding Shotgun is a remarkably honest and truly heartening gathering of essays, demonstrating with clarity and force the myriad ways that mothers and daughters share love and lives. But you needn't be a mother or a daughter - only human - to recognize what's universal in these painful, redemptive, wise, and often sweetly comic essays. This is simply a wonderful collection!

This book is an excellent collection of essays from women who grew up in very different situations, and with very different relationships with their mothers. Read this book with your mother and/or your sister; it's bound to strike a chord.

Women are from Venus. Women's Intuition. The Feminine Mystique. Whatever you want to call it, women have a different kind of sensitivity and power from their Y-chromosomed counterparts, and that perception may be the most finely tuned with regard to one's mother.

"We know things, my sisters assure me. We know the future. No, sometimes we know the future, I caution. My dead sister knew who was calling before she picked up the phone. I know when a person is moving toward me across time and place. I think of them and they come back into my life. What does all this mean? I ask my mother. What have you done to us?"
--from Jonis Agee's "Storm Warnings"

That's just one of the things you'll experience firsthand reading Riding Shotgun: Women Write About Their Mothers [Borealis Books], a series of personal essays edited by Kathryn Kysar. To rise into and assume the mantle of womanhood means different things to different women, but one thing is clear: no one gets through it without a few scratches--and if you're lucky, some good advice, a proud example, and maybe a few hugs and kisses-- from Mommy.

Just in time for Mother's Day, Riding Shotgun is a different kind of celebration. Grown women from all kinds of backgrounds take a literary look at this intense, sometimes frightening, intimidating, funny, and at best, loving universal relationship between daughters and their mothers. You'll find true-tales from great contemporary writers such as Sandra Benitez, Tai Coleman, Alison McGhee, Susan Steger Welsh, Denise Low, Susan Power, Carrie Pomeroy, and many others. Reading more like short stories than essays trying to preach anything, Riding Shotgun examines women--and humanity-- in a fresh way. No need for sentimental sweet greeting card poetry, or teary apple-pie baking puppy dog tales. This is a new age, a great mix of culture, and a celebration of uniquely feminine power, as daughters, parents, caregivers, cooks, gardeners, friends, victims, bullies, crazy people and everything in between. Because after all, why be cliché? We're different.

Aren't you glad?

Kathryn Kysar, the author of Dark Lake, teaches writing in Minneapolis. She has received fellowships from the National Endowment for the Humanities, Norcroft, the Anderson Center for Interdisciplinary Studies, and the Banfill-Locke Center for the Arts.

[...]

Una fabulosa historia muy bien recomendada

Superbly written from the first word to the last! This book has joined my all time favorites list. It's a gripping story with a seamless fusion between fiction and the harsh realities of the Salvadorean conflict. I simply could not put it down. My greatest admiration for the author!

After reading Night of the Radishes, this book took me by surprise. A moving story; I couldn't put it down.

Our group of LASGS students from Ms. Cometa's class, period three and four, has decided that the book The Weight of all Things gets five out of five stars for being a book that greatly depicts how innocent campesinos were being discriminated during the Civil war of El Salvador. The story begins at the time when the assassination of Archbishop Romero. Thousands of campesinos gathered around Romero's body laid in a casket. Young Nicolás de la Virgen Veras is saved from an unsuspected shooting were his mother is shot and murdered along with thirty-four others.

After thinking his mother returned to her work, Nicolás returns to his grandfather's rancho were most events in the book happen. Nicolás brutally suffers things most of us would describe as merely a nightmare. This book depicts his perspective and his religious belief on how La Virgen Milagrosa, who he is named after, protects him from harm.

He meets many people along his journey. Some friends don't make it, but others do. As Nicolás matures he figures out his mother has passed on. Along with his grandfather and longtime friend Emilio Sanchéz, grows up, gets an education, and at age thirty, he becomes yet another recipient of the Premio Manuel Quijano Hernandez. Along side him his friends and family.

This book is highly recommended by us here at LASGS. If you want a book you want to put down until the end, then this is a book for you.

Our group of LASGS students from Ms. Cometa's class, period three and four, has decided that the book The Weight of all Things gets five out of five stars for being a book that greatly depicts how innocent campesinos were being discriminated during the Civil war of El Salvador. The story begins at the time when the assassination of Archbishop Romero. Thousands of campesinos gathered around Romero's body laid in a casket. Young Nicolás de la Virgen Veras is saved from an unsuspected shooting were his mother is shot and murdered along with thirty-four others.

After thinking his mother returned to her work, Nicolás returns to his grandfather's rancho were most events in the book happen. Nicolás brutally suffers things most of us would describe as merely a nightmare. This book depicts his perspective and his religious belief on how La Virgen Milagrosa, who he is named after, protects him from harm.

He meets many people along his journey. Some friends don't make it, but others do. As Nicolás matures he figures out his mother has passed on. Along with his grandfather and longtime friend Emilio Sanchéz, grows up, gets an education, and at age thirty, he becomes yet another recipient of the Premio Manuel Quijano Hernandez. Along side him his friends and family.

This book is highly recommended by us here at LASGS. If you want a book you want to put down until the end, then this is a book for you.

After reading this book I ordered all of Sandra Benitez's other novels. The writing was gripping from the very first sentence ..."it would be clear it was a bullet to the head that killed her." Emotionally intense, historically and culturally correct and a story that both warmed and broke my heart at the same time. This is a very realistic story of innocent people caught up in the middle of political turmoil.

I really enjoyed this book. If you like novels that are vivid and descriptive, that clearly paint life of women in other countries and cultures, then this book is for you. It offers a glimpse of two very different families in El Salvador - rich coffee plantation land owners and peasant coffee pickers/servants. I specifically liked how Benitez had the action and every day life ~ with joy, sorrow, love, births, deaths ~ take place in the context of major historical events. I loved how the "telenovela" and its characters took on a life of their own. Anyone who has visited a Latin American country can vouch that they can really take a whole nation by storm! (Just think, how many people in America were waiting to see which David won American Idol?!) As a person of Salvadoran descent it served as middle-age introduction to the tumultuos and rich history of the country and it left me longing to learn more and reconnect with my roots.

I am amazed at the high ratings this book received. It was, undoubtedly, the worst book I have ever read. It might have been better with good editing. There were many unimportant characters and many horrible descriptions that could have been omitted. Who really cares about the dogs, many of whom have no relevance to the story. Who really cares about the detailed description of the decor of a room. Yes, I did finish the book that, by the way, had no ending. Toward the middle of the book I actually started editing it. What a mess!

the book was in the condition promised as was its delivery. but the content was extroindary. what a story, im suprised noone recommened this book to me sooner. a rich unrelenting dark read that covers everything a good book needs. love,mystery,sorrow,history sex, upstairs downstairs intrigue. this book will stay with me for a long time. it told me a story i never knew of so. america, and i am sorry for that

Author Sandra Benitez wraps readers up tightly in the tale of a poor family and a rich family tied to El Salvador's coffee plantations, but don't get too cozy: the terrors imposed by gov't forces as well as the guerrilla soldiers lurks somewhere on the pages ahead. The story follows pairs of mothers and daughters caught between passion and politics.
The author grew up in the 50s in El Salvador and was a witness to the heartbreak of illiterate women who left villages and families behind to find work in the capital. Then, in the 70s, as friends and family became targets of the growing revolution, she experienced firsthand the repercussions of oppression. This is a powerful book, one that will stay with readers long after they've turned the last page and turned off the reading lamp.

I really like the way Sandra Benitez writes. It is the first of her books I read and was nice to see the combination of reality and fiction. A fiction novel based on a reality that darkened the beautiful country of El Salvador.

'A Place Where the Sea Remembers' by Sandra Benitez is more like a cultural representation than an actual story. Benitez includes most of the issues that the Hispanic world encounters, including little money, rape, spiritistic superstitions, natural disasters, and some universal ones like love and death. Each issues pops up one after another in each subsequent chapter until it's impossible to incorporate more.

Her writing style is simple so it's not hard to read, but the word choice is not superb. Benitez structured the chapters so that that a minor character in one person's life story becomes the main character in the next. This style makes it near to impossible to connect fully with the characters, since every time you get close to them they're taken away for the next person.

There's also the cultural healer, Remedios, who has chapters interspersed throughout the book. While her story is supposed to represent the spiritistic side of the Hispanics, her chapters make little sense to the average reader. Full of symbolism and random imagery in a flowing tone, it does little but to overwhelm the reader and make them want to skip onto the next chapter.

Benitez's book may not be an engrossing, life-changing experience, but she does portray Hispanic culture in a truthful light. 'A Place Where the Sea Remembers' would be a good book for one who would like to read about the Hispanic world.

wow I would read this book to bed like everyday for a week. Its rare how all the chapters are characters yet they all click and are linked one way or the other. The ending was sad yet it was different. It's a good book to read. It's not a book that will hit your soul but it is a good book b/c is a story you wouldnt be surprise to hear from your grandmother.

I don't really get this book, but I have to read it for school. I need MAJOR help.

I did not find this book to be interesting and it did not grasp my attention. I did not think that the characters were developed very well. I did not feel for the bird man or any of the other characters and their tragic lives. However, Sandra Benitez is a wonderful person and instructor. I am still looking forward to reading The Weight of all Things. I would love to read a book about her life growing up in Latin America as well. I am sorry to have to give Ms. Benitez a rating of a 2. If you want to read the work of Ms. Benitez do not start with this book.

Sandra Benitez's book, A Place Where the Sea Remembers, is a beautiful and contemplative novel about a seaside community in Mexico. Although the story primarily concerns the relationship of two sisters, Chayo and Marta, the story's focus frequently shifts to other members of the community. Through these focal shifts, the reader is reminded of the connections between individuals and their community.

Chayo and Marta are both pregnant. Chayo's pregnancy follows several years of disappointing infertility; Marta's is the result of a rape. When Marta reveals to Chayo and her husband, Candelario, that she intends to have an abortion, Candelario impulsively (without first clearing it with Chayo) tells Marta that he and Chayo will raise Marta's child as their own. The consequences of that rash, though good-intentioned, promise unfold over the three-year timeframe of the novel.

In a remarkably artful (almost lyrical) fashion, Sandra Benitez introduces characters in the community through vignettes. In addition to the story of Chayo and Marta which develops throughout the book, this book also portrays episodes in the lives of other characters. Among those characters are Fulgencio, the photographer, who panicks while hitch-hiking at night on a deserted road. Fulgencio's anxiety-ridden story is worthy of a Twilight Zone episode. Rafael, a bachelor schoolmaster who is henpecked by his elderly mother, is misjudged and accused of immorality. Justo, an illiterate old man who has lost contact with his children, desperately searches for someone who can read the telegram that has just been delivered to him.

Each vignette is so rich in imagery, atmosphere and characterization that the reader feels he has come to know the character. Stringing these vignettes together like pearls are the prayers, chants and thoughts of Remedios, the healer, as she waits on the seashore for a drowned body to wash ashore. At the book's end, all of the stories and anecdotes come together when the reader learns who it is who drowned.

I am greatly impressed with Sandra Benitez's writing. Her writing style reminds me of William Saroyan and Sherwood Anderson (who both used vignettes to characterize individuals in fictional communities). Ms. Benitez has captured the essence of the rural Mexican community I once lived in. I'm looking forward to more fiction from this talented author.

Respeto a los que comparan cualquier cosa que leen con las novelas de Isabel Allende, pero les recuerdo que la Allende escribe basicamente sobre Chile aunque su influencia se deje sentir en las novelas femeninas del resto de latinoamerica. Hay que leer sobre otros paises tambien! Esta novela sobre El Salvador esta bastante bien.
Cuenta la historia de una familia, al estilo La Casa de la Laguna de Rosario Ferre, pero el hecho de que la historia transcurra en un pais centroamericano, cuya economia gira alrededor del cafe, le da sus diferencias.
El lenguaje es sencillo y claro, de facil lectura.

The correct title of this book is Aroma de Cafe Amargo.

No "n" on Amargo.

Buscando un regalo para mi abuela de 89 años, me recomendaron "Aroma de Café Amargo" como una lectura amena capaz de entretener a cualquier lector. Lo compré, lo envolví y después decidí regalarle a mi abuelita unas deliciosas polvorositas y quedarme yo con el libro. Mi egoismo fue castigado. La primera sorpresa fue que "Aroma..." a pesar de su tema: Tres generaciones de mujeres en el Salvador en un pais donde las grandes diferencias sociales y económicas son las que hacen la historia; a pesar del nombre de su autora: Sandra Benitez y a pesar de su portada que asemeja un cuadro de Diego Rivera; "Aroma ..." está escrito en inglés. ¡Cual es el problema?, confieso mi total ignorancia sobre el español salvadoreño, pero esta traducción hecha en Argentina, tenía un definitivo aroma a pampas que resulta bastante incómodo al resto de los hispanoparlantes. Una vez superado el schock idiomático nos encontramos con una historia muy por el estilo de las que escribe Isabel Allende y Angeles Mastretta sobre mujeres latinoamericanas, en este caso salvadoreñas. El libro tiene un principio bastante prometedor cuando dos mujeres indigenas: madre e hija, encuentran una cabeza y deciden enterrarla para evitarse problemas pero no pueden evitar la gran matanza indigena de la cual ellas sobreviven milagrosamente. Pero lo que pudo ser una interesante historia sobre el latifundismo latinoamericano se queda en una simple historia de mujeres de pocos matices. Tengo entendido que esta novela ganó un premio cuando salió en inglés, creo que el Book award, debe ser porque La Mastretta todavía no ha logrado cruzar el Rio Grande

Yes, much of this book is about the author's battle with ulcerative colitis, her ileostomy, and the bag she now wears. (Pause for a yuck break for those who need it.) But it's also more, it's the memoir of a woman partly, but far from wholly, defined by her gastrointestinal travails. The scenes from her childhood in Mexico and El Salvador are lyrical and provide insight into her writings. The later episodes on alcoholism, substance abuse, and infidelity are choppier and less pleasant, but honest and part of what has made her the writer she is. The twin sister who didn't survive, the broken back, the writing career that almost didn't gain traction, these are part of a writer's true story with too many subplots for a good novel.

If you've loved her novels you should read this book. But be forewarned that the expulsion of human waste is a major theme of the book, and the portrait of the author that emerges is far from saintly. In the end Benitez is more a survivor than a hero, but she comes across as a likable, if flawed, character.

Annie Rush's mother just died and on her deathbed asked her daughter to find her brother. Carrying lots of emotional baggage, including the childhood accidental death of her twin sister and the suicide of her father, she goes to a small town in Mexico. There she discovers much about herself, life, her brother, and carving radishes. It was a good read!

Reading this book was a great way for me to relive my own trip to Oaxaca at Christmastime. The Night of the Radishes, the Casa de Colonial, the beach at Puerto Angel ... it's a wonderful setting for a novel. I would have liked Benitez to delve more into the lives of the native Mexicans and Indians. What are their poverty-stricken lives really like? How can Americans learn from them? What did the characters learn about Mexico's indigenous population while driving over the mountains? Sadly, Benitez treats her characters like many Americans who travel to far away lands and never interact with the native cultures, and never talk to the native peoples. I felt very American reading this book, when I could have felt touched by another culture that is so different, and in many ways richer, than my own.

A friend recommended the book after hearing that we were going to visit Oaxaca. The Oaxaca information was good, but the story was pretty cheesy. The subplot about Annie & Joe was pretty hard to believe. I know Benitez is a famous author, but I'm going to have a difficult time picking up one of her books again.

Sandra Benitez continues to evolve as a writer, and has certainly avoided the trap of writing the same book over and over. This novel begins in the American midwest, and with a much more conventional feel then her previous works. But it then move into Mexico, and starts to pick up the latin magic of her earlier books. The story also becomes deeper and more nuanced, and thereby more compelling. Always marvelously written, by the end the story is a compelling mixture of midwestern solidity, psychological insight, and Mexican mysticism. It combines the very American dissection of a family gone bad with the overlay of latin magic revealing the facts. This helps to maintain the uncertainty about the outcome and the sense of discovery much longer than a more conventional American novel would have. This was not the Benitez work I liked the best, but it is an enjoyable read.

This is the story of Annie Hart Rush, who, as the book opens, is caring for her mother, who is dying of emphysema. When she dies it will be the latest in a series of devastating losses--first, her twin sister's death in a terrible accident--then her father's suicide. Then her brother Hub runs away from home, not to be heard from for twenty years. Oppressed with guilt and anger, Annie seems to function, but is slowing sinking into unshakable depression.

Annie's mother extracts a deathbed promise, that Annie will try to find the long-lost brother. And as she begins to do so, she will learn much about her family history and herself. Her search will lead not only to her missing brother, and to a new family in Mexico, but to a new understanding of her past, to forgiveness and redemption.

Author Sandra Benitez writes in graceful, lucid prose. Her characters are believable. The story is engaging, uplifting, and powerful. The cultural mix is intriguing too-- Mexico and Minnesota are both charmingly portrayed. If you are looking for a warm and fuzzy book, this is it. Be sure to have your handkerchief ready. The book is not perfect--maybe a little too sentimental, maybe a little too much psychology too glibly presented. Still, it works, and I enjoyed it. I recommend Night of the Radishes highly. Reviewed by Louis N. Gruber.