THE GLASS EYE

A good-natured domestic comedy set amid the Puerto Rican
community in the Bronx.

“Doña Amada could see more
through her one eye than most people could see with two,” begins Gallardo’s trim
debut. “She could see the past and she could see the future, but the present
was left to the bright shiny marble that had replaced her eye, torn from its
socket by her husband’s jealous mistress.” And so begins the story of Amada and
her passively philandering husband, Alberto, always the Lothario of the
neighborhood and the apple of his doting parents’ eyes. And the story of
Alberto’s parents, Don Pepitón and Doña Antonia, who disapproved of their son’s
union from the start—in part Amada is a rival for Alberto’s affections, and in
part because everyone knows that Amada’s mother, Doña Esperanza, is a witch. As
the interfamily saga continues, we get to know Pepitón’s brother Pedro, who
runs a gas station, and his other brother, Che, and Alberto’s vengeful
paramour, Sarah—the one who will, years later, be responsible for Amada’s
missing eye—and Sarah’s mother, Doña María, a Pentecostal gossip. Everyone knows
everyone, and there is a story about everyone; every relationship has a
history, and Gallardo playfully recounts them all. There is no shortage of
action here—the novel is vibrating with birth and death and tragedy—and yet
there is a certain shapelessness to the novel; instead of a story arc, Gallardo
offers a story seismograph, a steady stream of momentous action without a
central weight. This, of course, is exactly the tempo of
familial lore, with its histories and diversions—every story needs a different story
first, for context—but the downside here is that it prevents the novel from
gaining much momentum.

Charming, if not especially deep.