The Wife of Bath, Retold: A Chicana Point-of-View

From the Backlist

Silviana Wood’s 617-page debut novel La Quinta Soledad is a winding narrative full of lightning and thunder told in free-wheeling hybrid calo (Chicano dialect) by an aging, working-class Chicana named Quinta. The narrative voice is interspersed with a linguistic treasure trove of English-Spanish neologisms, playful double-entendres, and a dash of Yiddish. She narrates the story of her abuela, Nana Conchita, and the origin of their family name, Soledad. Reading the novel is like eavesdropping into the family drama and the lives of her four sisters, ruled by the strong hand of their Nana, who loves to chastise them all for their sinverguenzada (shamelessness). In short, Quinta is the delightful impish trickster character that gives readers a history of their plight, capturing every historical etching and minutia of suffering, working-class Chicanx endured the last 50 years, even if tapered by the voice of her Nana, the archetypal abuelita figure familiar in extended family households. No matter what happens in this delightful long tale, Nana tries her magisterial best to tame Quinta's libido. Aligned with her name, Quinta’s character is a symbolic allusion to the cultural myths of Aztlan, the cultural landscape of the Aztecs, and her story is a memoir and love letter to Chicana culture.