Let their spirits dance : a novel /

Thirty years after the death of Jesse Ramirez in Vietnam, his mother is convinced that the last words her son spoke to her in the airport have come true. He promised her that she would hear his voice again, and she--believing she has done just that--feels she must make a pilgrimage to the Vietnam War Memorial. The story of the family's journey in a ragtag caravan, consisting of the extended family and Jesse's old friends, is narrated by Jesse's sister Teresa. She remembers the joy of family life when Jesse was still alive and the sadness and pain that ripped them apart after his death. When their journey attracts the attention of a TV reporter, the resulting publicity brings them good news about Jesse's time in Vietnam, and the family is finally able to make peace with his death. Partly a political novel and partly a family story, Duarte's tale seems barely able to contain the welter of emotion that tumbles from its pages. Deeply felt and often moving, this is an impressive first novel. Joanne Wilkinson.

A cross-country trip to the Vietnam Wall is the subject of Let Their Spirits Dance, Stella Pope Duarte's tearjerker of a first novel (Fragile Nights, a collection of short stories, was published in 1998). Elementary school teacher Teresa Ramirez is skeptical when her ailing 80-year-old mother hears voices telling her to make a pilgrimage to touch her son's name on the wall, but the whole extended Ramirez family and assorted friends set out to drive to Washington, making a name for themselves along the way. Duarte's narrative is meandering, but the density of the detail she packs in gives the novel emotional clout and historical depth. (May) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved

Duarte's first novel is an inspirational road book full of energetic Latinos exorcising their cultural, political, and personal demons. A fortyish schoolteacher, Teresa is failing at her marriage and is haunted by the memory of her beloved brother, Jesse, who was killed in the Vietnam War 29 years ago. One night, Teresa's mother hears Jesse's voice, which tells her to go to the Vietnam Veterans Memorial in Washington, DC. Then surprise, surprise she finds out that the government owes her $90,000 because it had mistakenly delivered her son's body to the wrong address. Despite poor health, Mrs. Ramirez rounds up Teresa, her other children, and friends and heads to the nation's capital by auto caravan. The press picks up on their junket and follows them through American towns large and small. As they near the memorial, the mother takes sick but not before meeting Jesse's Vietnamese wife, his son (raised in America), and his grandchild. Duarte's considerable talents shine in the entertaining travel sections, but red-flagged plot devices and an excess of cultural and historical apposition about Chicano history undermine the narrative's complexity and aesthetic enjoyment. Recommended for collections of Latino literature. Harold Augenbraum, Mercantile Lib. of New York Fuentes, Carlos. Inez. (c) Copyright 2010. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.

First-novelist Duarte (stories: Fragile Night, not reviewed) skillfully treats the wounds inflicted on a Chicano family by the war in Vietnam. The death in battle of young Sgt. Jesse Ramirez during the Tet offensive of 1968 broke the spirit of his Arizona family. The eldest of four children and the favorite of his sister Teresa, narrator of this unpretentious and moving story, Jesse was adored by three generations, none of whom completely recovered from his loss. Three decades later, Teresa is a grandmother and elementary schoolteacher on the brink of losing her career after a catfight with her estranged husband's girlfriend. Her siblings' lives are as messy if not messier. Baby brother Paul, who's been in and out of jail, has lost custody of his brilliant son Michael. Younger sister Priscilla can't get over the loss of a child. And now Teresa's mother, in poor health and widowed after years with an openly unfaithful husband, tells her daughter that she's heard Jesse's voice in the night. She informs Teresa that Jesse wants her to go to Washington to touch his name on the Vietnam Memorial, that she has promised to do so, and that it is more or less up to Teresa to make it happen. Quickly. There's no doubt that the trip will occur or that the ending will be emotional. What keeps Duarte's story from tipping into the dangerous swamps of ethnic sanctity, magically realistic plot rescues, or made-for-TV simplicity (and the wheels get frighteningly close to the berm from time to time) is the author's formidable skill in rendering a large family whose Mexican Indian past has shaped, toughened, and, occasionally, handicapped them. No one's a saint here, not even the grandmothers who set up altars every night to the Virgin of Guadalupe. These old ladies are as tough and as dominant as their Calabrian or Bengali counterparts, and their children nurse youthful slights long into adulthood. Still, an enviable core of good humor and loyalty prevails. Intelligent, unpretentious, and appealing. Author tour