In Dancing with Butterflies, Reyna Grande renders the Mexican immigrant experience in “lyrical and sensual” (Publishers Weekly, starred review) prose through the poignant stories of four women brought together through folklorico dance.
Dancing with Butterflies uses the alternating voices of four very different women whose lives interconnect through a common passion for their Mexican heritage and a dance company called Alegría. Yesenia, who founded Alegría with her husband, Eduardo, sabotages her own efforts to remain a vital, vibrant woman when she travels back and forth across the Mexican border for cheap plastic surgery. Elena, grief-stricken by the death of her only child and the end of her marriage, finds herself falling dangerously in love with one of her underage students. Elena's sister, Adriana, wears the wounds of abandonment by a dysfunctional family and becomes unable to discern love from abuse. Soledad, the sweet-tempered illegal immigrant who designs costumes for Alegría, finds herself stuck back in Mexico, where she returns to see her dying grandmother.
Reyna Grande has brought these fictional characters so convincingly to life that readers will imagine they know them.
- ISBN10 1439109060
- ISBN13 9781439109069
- Publish Date 6 October 2009
- Publish Status Active
- Out of Print 1 November 2023
- Publish Country US
- Publisher Simon & Schuster
- Imprint Washington Square Press Inc.,N.Y.
- Format Paperback (US Trade)
- Pages 416
- Language English