Song of the Water Saints
By Nelly Rosario
Pantheon, $23
ISBN 0375420878

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Generations of passion and struggle

In her first novel, Dominican-born, Brooklyn-reared Nelly Rosario entwines the longing and restlessness of a willful girl and her three generations of offspring into a captivating tale. Graciela is a rebellious rural beauty whose unforgettable life leaves its mark on everyone she meets. Opening in the Dominican Republic of the early 1900s, Song of the Water Saints follows Graciela's search for her destiny, even as it tempts her away from her daughter and husband. U.S. forces occupy the island and cast a pallor over island life, adding outside frustrations to those that come from within Graciela. Poverty, superstition and prejudice, combined with the urge to experience more than her tiny village, move Graciela from the coast to the capital city, and from encounters with syphilitic European tourists in the brothels of an earthquake ravaged town to the austerity of the Catholic church.

Mercedes, her indomitable daughter, finds herself alone as a blossoming teenager, passionately devoted to the church and to her own struggle to make something of her life. With a head for numbers and a decided lack of wanderlust, she creates a successful business with her young husband, building the foundation for their eventual emigration to New York City. There, Mercedes takes on the task of raising her granddaughter with traditional Dominican values in a land of permissive mores. Leila, as hot-blooded and filled with wanderlust as Graciela, finds as much danger in modern day New York as Graciela did in the turn-of-the-century Dominican Republic.

Rosario balances the richness of familial history and emotional landscape with the startling poverty of the struggling country and the dreams of its women. These are restless, honest and real people, fashioned with the talent that has earned Rosario several writing awards and the nickname "modern day Scheherazade." The storytelling skills shown in this debut novel hold the promise of many rich tales to come.

Kelly Koepke writes from Albuquerque.