Dark Plums

by María Espinosa

Paperback, 228 pages

Dark Plums is Maria Espinosa's exploration of a young woman's search for love and personal identity in Manhattan. Set in the late 1950s, Adrianne, a young girl from Texas, wanders the city and has sex indiscriminately with strangers. Her relationship with a Cuban-American artist, Alfredo, leads to further degradation as she agrees to work as a hooker in order to support his work as a painter. His treatment of her becomes increasingly brutal, and her suffering becomes so intense that she breaks down. But she ultimately emerges with the strength to leave him. This book has been called both "exquisitely erotic" and a "psychological tour de force." Dark Plums is part of a disordered trilogy of novels—including Longing (Winner of the 1996 American Book Award) and Dying Unfinished—all of which stand on their own but which share some characters and settings, and dip from the same psychological well.

Critical Praise

Brilliant, deftly written, Espinosa's Dark Plums is the story of innocent-but-knowing Adrianne. It is not a love story, if by that one means a romantic or fairy tale. But Dark Plums is a story of love wrought out of desire, passion, and a need for tenderness in the sultry depths of mind and heart. Brava!
— Lucha Corpi, author of Eulogy for a Brown Angel, Cactus Blood, Crimson Moon, and others.

Reviews

Exploring psychosocial dynamics

MELUS: Varieties of Ethnic Criticism

An interesting exploration of psychosocial dynamics.... Primarily set in New York City, taking place between 1959 and 1962 ... the protagonist is a 19-year-old Latina, recently arrived from Houston, trying to compose a reasonable sense of self after the trauma of an abortion. —Héctor Pérez
Nonstop casual sex as metaphor

Library Journal
Espinosa explores abuse—physical, sexual, emotional—as metaphors for women's subjugation and degradation.... Adrianne, of Espinosa's Dark Plums, goes from nearly nonstop casual sexual encounters with men and women to brutal prostitution but ultimately emerges with a whole, if bruised, identity....

About This Author

Buy This Book : $16.95

ISBN 978-0-916727-90-1
US $16.95