Gulf Dreams

Rating:
Summary: Haunting story of desire and loss in the Texas Gulf
Review: Emma Perez's first novel Gulf Dreams is a challenging look at women, race and desire in a small Texas town. While the racism is blatant, the lives of Chicanas and Chicanos are also structured by sexism, heterosexism and sexual abuse. Perez traces the life of one woman, a girl who falls in love with another girl. The narrator refuses the path laid out for female friendships -- comadres who will see one another through "adolescence, marriage, menopause, death, and even divorce," -- saying instead "I had not come for that. I had come for her kiss." Ironically, the unnamed (lesbian) narrator learns sex from her (heterosexual? bisexual? otherwise queer?) girlfriend, as the latter recounts what her boyfriend does for her.

The novel is no coming-out story, lesbian affirmation, or simple erotica, nor is it a straight-forward narrative. Gulf Dreams leads the reader on a haunted path of tangled desires and memories. Perez's writing style is sensually evocative, bringing the reader not mere images but sensations of smell, touch taste, and pain.

Those familiar with Perez's critical writings will see echoes of past themes here, particularly in the rape trial, where racism is used as a rationalization or a diversion for male violence against women. Much more than a theoretical inquiry, Gulf Dreams is a complex and compelling novel. [Published in CLRC Research and News Update No. 8 (Fall/Winter 1997): 15.] Copyright 1997 Catriona Rueda Esquibel

Rating:
Summary: A haunting novel of desire and memory
Review: Emma Perez's first novel Gulf Dreams is a challenging look at women,race and desire in a small Texas town. While the racism is blatant, the lives of Chicanas and Chicanos are also structured by sexism, heterosexism and sexual abuse. Perez traces the life of one woman, a girl who falls in love with another girl. The narrator refuses the path laid out for female friendships -- comadres who will see one another through "adolescence, marriage, menopause, death, and even divorce," -- saying instead "I had not come for that. I had come for her kiss."

Ironically, the unnamed (lesbian) narrator learns sex from her (heterosexual? bisexual? otherwise queer?) girlfriend, as the latter recounts what her boyfriend does for her.

The novel is no coming-out story, lesbian affirmation, or simple erotica, nor is it a straight-forward narrative. Gulf Dreams leads the reader on a haunted path of tangled desires and memories. Perez's writing style is sensually evocative, bringing the reader not mere images but sensations of smell, touch taste, and pain.

Those familiar with Perez's critical writings will see echoes of past themes here, particularly in the rape trial, where racism is used as a rationalization or a diversion for male violence against women. Much more than a theoretical inquiry, Gulf Dreams is a complex and compelling novel....