"Cross-Cultural Ties"
by Alice Hathaway
May 1994

         It is the perfection of the writing that makes Harriet Doerr’s latest novel Consider This Señora, one that will be read again and again. In it, she explores the lives of four Northamerican expatriates living in a small Mexican village near a natural lake that comes and goes with the seasons.

      A sense of place comes through the observations of various characters, and personalities are revealed when dialog flashes out of the narrative:

      She smelled wet leaves, wet earth, jasmine, animal dung, smoke from a charcoal fire. She heard the church bell strike, a man shout, a woman laugh. A night bird sang two notes. A burro brayed. Speaking aloud, she addressed the dark. “I was right to come,” she said. “Yes.”

      Crystalline prose, with metaphors and similes where appropriate, surprise and delight as the reader comes to know the milieu: He handed her the pen as if it were an exotic bloom. He noticed that her eyes were green, like wet bay leaves. Later: Altagracia emerged from the kitchen with a plate of cooked chicken in her hands. And Ursula watched all four men look up as though they were hunters in a jungle and suddenly some leaves had twitched.

      As the Northeamericans and Mexicans interact in their daily lives, reactions change from curiosity and suspicion to respect and dependency. Young Patricio Gómez, gardener, chauffeur, problem-solver, accepted the arrival of the foreigners with trepidation: The fact that this aged norteamericana could communicate in Spanish disappointed Patricio. With the coming of these people who know the language, we are losing our liberty to speak, he remarked to himself.

      Near the end of the book, when Susanna Ames is upset to learn that musicians have not arrived to play at the dedication of a new band stand, Patricio is there:

      At last Patricio said, “Consider this, señora, musicians are to be found everywhere in Mexico. They are polishing their instruments and waiting for your call even here in a town like this, with inadequate streetlights and drainage.” And he went on to name a number of local artists who played guitars and violins. Then, after a moment of thought, he remarked, I know one musician who is actually in Amapolis at this time and free to play this afternoon.” “Who?” Sue asked, and her charged’affairs said, “Aparicio Fuentes.”

      Harriet Doerr was born in 1910. She currently lives in California. Her first novel, Stones for Ibarra, won for her the prestigious American Book Award in 1984 (when she was seventy-four years old). This new novel promises no less.