A House of My Own: Stories from My Life (Vintage International)

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For those of us living between two worlds, our job in the universe is to help others see with more than their eyes. On a recent episode of the Code Switch podcast, I interviewed Cisneros about her 2016 memoir, A House of My Own. And even when I locked it for the last time and looked at it one last moment, as I pulled away, I still felt proud of what my labor had been able to produce. We follow her on her quest for enlightenment, for worldliness, artistic substance, and a career to sustain her. Throughout each story, though written for a diverse smattering of purposes and people, is Cisneros’s constant molding of words like clay.

When she was reading in Portland, Sandra Cisneros talked about losing track of what she had written BC (before computers). Cisneros has found a place in the world of letters, but longing for a home has kept her spirit restless . As I grew up, though, I found a deeper appreciation for Cisneros and, I'll admit, she's part of the reason why I am now working on my graduate degree in Creative Writing. The great reveal of this book is found in they ways that Cisneros shares with us her most tender and quiet moments, her struggles and amazing humor, and the many people and places that move her. When I was a child, I saw her as being very unhappily married — to a nice man, but not her intellectual equal.Frank, accessible examinations of multiple subjects braided together in Cisneros’s personable, self-examining style.

Wherever she settles, even when she settles, she is Sandra Cisneros, a wandering spirit and creator of stories. In a tone that is intimate and inviting—indeed, we feel we are sitting right next to [Cisneros] as she sips tea (or chugs tequila) at her home in Mexico, and recounts her adventures with a laugh and a shake of the head: Ay Dios mio. And I did that because when you don't have a room of your own, you create a time of your own, a space of your own. My mother's first thing she did in the morning was turn on the radio, and my brothers turned on television sets. I just never really read anything by Chicano/a individuals throughout most of my schooling, including college.Her family, friends, artist collaborators and nemeses, her awareness of flowers and animals and sites and food and color, secure the reader in her worlds.