The Jackets
Liz DeJesus. Houston: Arte Publico Press, 2011. 137 pp. $16.95. ISBN: 9781558856035
Gritty stories of women's hopes and heartaches are central to Liz De Jesus' collection of short stories. Each story title is the color of a jacket worn by the main character, and corresponds to a relational tag in her predicament of romantic attachment and detachment. In the first story, a woman, newly freed from a bad relationship takes a joyous leap of faith into love. Her jacket is red, the color of her strength and creativity. Her personal power, displayed in the passionate color of her jacket, draws new love. In a separate story, a lonely woman is seduced by encounters with mythical apparitions. Different choices and different colors bedevil a writer torn between the intersection of reality and her interior literary life. She spurns a jealous and demanding muse, and lures another into mortality, with powerful consequences. The stories are disparate, yet the clothing, colors, and core feminine quests form cohesive portraits of young women today.
HIGHLY RECOMMENDED, especially for academic libraries and bookstores with strong gender studies and/or modern writing collections