Book Review: Sabrina & Corina by Kali Fajardo-Anstine
We read this contemporary collection of short stories (2019) for our book club. Kali Fajado-Anstine’s stories feature narratives of Latina and Native American women in Colorado, mostly in Denver. Though none of the stories explicitly share characters, they are set in the same world and capture the same tragic sense of being let down by the antiquated promise of the American West. Her characters wrestle with poverty, domestic violence, gentrification, death & illness, and more — often with grace and humanity.
As a native Californian, I’ve definitely internalized the belief that the West is imbued with a certain opportunity for redemption. Most of my classmates growing up were children of immigrants who had come from afar to pursue the American Dream. Aided by certain privileges and resources, many of us go on to pursue higher education, well-paid jobs, and upper-middle-class comfort. We detached from our ancestral land and came to the American West, which welcomed us. But for many of the characters in Sabrina & Corina, the West no longer holds the promise of new beginnings and instead represents home, with all its flaws and oppressions. In our book club, we talked about the powerful connection between Fajado-Anstine’s characters and the land they grew up upon — land that was being gentrified and taken away from them. Several of the stories’ characters choose to leave their home to move (further) West, often to California, to escape to greener pastures. They cling onto the hope of the American West, only to find that California is not immune from the same problems they had been trying to elude.
The theme of death connected the stories, whether it was the scene of a funeral, an ailing parent, an abortion, or a suicide. It was difficult not to become numb to the pain of death, which the writer shows to be a constant feature in the lives of her characters. Perhaps our lives are inherently concerned with our impending deaths. This collection of stories was engaging and contained within a slice of humanity that was very foreign yet relatable.
