Delia's Song - Softcover

Even the most sympathetic reader will squirm at this earnest but very poorly written first novel whose eponymous heroine leaves her Mexican-American family in 1968 to enroll as a freshman at Berkeley. Delia becomes politicized, romantically involved with a succession of men and (of course) alienated as she eventually earns a Ph.D. and then decides to become a writer. The literary abilities attributed to the main character all too painfully point up the deficiencies in Corpi's storytelling, chief of which is a failure to modulate Delia's thoughts, despite interpolated passages of italicized phrases that attempt stream-of-consciousness. Consequently Delia remains one-dimensional and her decisions seem glib; for example, she plans her writing career just as soon as a mentor suggests this (" Why not . . . You know she's right ," is Delia's immediate response). Delia's conflicts are so superficially explored that her efforts to resolve them are ultimately of little interest.
Copyright 1988 Reed Business Information, Inc.