Tita Ramírez’s Debut Considers Family Secrets https://ift.tt/jNsAubz
Tita Ramírez’s debut novel, Tell It To Me Singing, is a character-driven story about family secrets. The narrator’s voice, and her love of telenovela tropes, contribute to a deliciously fun book, even though themes of secrecy and identity are prominent throughout. For fans of The Last Story of Mina Lee by Nancy Jooyoun Kim, and Dominicana by Angie Cruz, Tell It To Me Singing will not disappoint. Even though I knew the premise before I started reading, it still surprised me and brought me to tears, especially at the end.
When the novel begins, Mónica Campo is trying to be okay with her new life. She is pregnant and engaged, living in her fiancé Robert’s space, and feeling a little trapped by it all. But she wants to keep the baby, and her parents want her to be married. However, Mónica’s life is thrown into turmoil when her mother has an unexpected health scare requiring heart surgery. As Mónica’s mother, Mirta, is taken into surgery, she says something shocking: “Mónica, your father is Juan. […] I loved him so much and he never knew about you.” Because the two women regularly watch a telenovela together, Mónica thinks, at first, that her mother must be confused, especially because she was medicated at the time she made the claim.
But after the surgery, when Mirta claims she does not remember saying this, she also begins to experience vivid memories, confusing people in her present life (2012, Miami, Florida) with people from her past, when she was a young woman in Cuba. As Mónica learns more about her mother’s past and about Juan, she wonders, “Is it possible this is all a hallucination—that I’ve dreamed myself into my own telenovela?” The narrative alternates between Mónica’s present day attempts to cope and Mirta’s history, allowing a nearly complete view of the family’s background, contextualizing choices and relationships as they play out.
Her mother’s proclamation shakes up things in Mónica’s family of origin, but hearing about her mother’s lost love also pushes Mónica to reimagine her own life. Her fiancé is kind and loving, though a little jealous, but is she really in love with him? Should she stay with Robert or choose a different path for herself and her child? Complicating things further is Mónica’s ex-boyfriend, Manny, a former Army medic who has returned from his last deployment. Because of his medical knowledge, Mónica calls Manny from the hospital to ask about her mother’s statement, setting off a series of interactions that naturally bring their feelings for one another back to the surface.
Mónica has to figure out how her family “might get back to [their] life. Not [their] old life full of lies but this new one full of truth and light”, but she spends much of the novel wanting to be alone, to pause her life, so she can sort through new information and make choices for herself without her parents, Robert, Manny, or the “Cuban National Convention” influencing her. As she moves into a hotel and starts spending time with the people in the next room, she learns more about herself and what she actually wants to do next, not just following the plans others have made, but considering her own desires and options.
Finally, one last impulsive choice turns the drama all the way up. When Mónica’s mother flies to Costa Rica after a fight with her husband, Mónica and Manny pursue her, and end up facing a situation far more dangerous than any of them anticipated. While other sections of the novel rely on interiority and interpersonal conflict to keep the plot moving, this portion is more action-packed. The change of pace allows characters to show their personalities and connections to one another in ways that are not present in other parts of the book.
Tita Ramírez’s Tell It To Me Singing is, in many ways, about the idea that our families only lay the foundation of who we will become. These things are important, of course, and disruptions to knowledge of family, like the revelation of a family secret, can shake the foundation of a person’s identity. Ultimately, though, our choices write the rest of the story. The novel is a joy to read, with connection, hope, and care at its core.
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