• Love Lies Large
• Rebecca Cuthbert (bio)

In her debut collection, Ivelisse Rodriguez shows us that love and war do not exist as binary opposites—they are not even two sides of the same coin or any other cliché that points to a line, a division between the two. Love is war, an amorphous, shifting mass that stains forever what it does not consume.

Readers should mark that a Julia de Burgos quote opens the first story, and that is a clue to what follows. The famous Puerto Rican poet—champion of women and independence, disappointed so many times by love and lovers—will show up here and there throughout the pages that follow, an inspiration to the characters as well as Rodriguez herself. That several biographies trace a straight line from de Burgos's heartache to her early death is lost on no one.

The adolescent voices in Rodriguez's stories are perhaps the sharpest. She captures all the agony and longing that marks those years, when hopes are at their zenith and, therefore, their most brittle. In "El Que Diran," set in the 1950s, Noelia is poised on the edge of her Quinceañera, trying to solidify her relationship with the beautiful and cruel Ricardo. At first, she ignores his violence, caught up in the imagined fairy tale so many girls, in so many places, are taught to believe. "Each time, I was struck by his beauty," she narrates, "wavy hair and dimples. Broad-shouldered and a self-satisfied smile." She imagines "Ricardo holding [her] in his arms, [their] bodies touching." She doesn't dwell on how he treats her: "rigid eyes, blazing nostrils, coiled lip.... he'd grabbed [her] arm at school, turning [her] skin red under his fingers." Like her Tia Lola's situation, Noelia's does not improve.

"Summer of Nene," another story featuring passionate and frustrated teens, gives us one of the collection's many gifts. Here, Rodriguez portrays a closeted homosexual relationship between two friends, Jimmy and Nene, whose social survival depends on their tough reputations—made all the more difficult because Nene is disabled and chronically ill. The boys do not name their love; they never even acknowledge it in the bright light of day. Like Rodriguez's other characters, they simply let it ache between them. "We never speak about what we do," explains Jimmy. "Our words come in the form of knots in our hearts, glances, and brief touches on the hot of my back." Love, Jimmy has learned from his mother, from his neighborhood, from Nene, too, is not something you can keep.

These adolescents and new adults exist between cultures and communities in myriad ways. They are torn between the desire to blend in with mainstream society and the call to honor the notions of their more traditional parents. They want independence while they long for all-consuming love affairs. They switch effortlessly between English and Spanish, these Puerto Rican girls growing up in American cities, negotiating how much space they can take up in their schools, in their neighborhoods, in their homes.

Though this cross-culturalism is an obvious theme in the collection, Rodriguez does not stamp flat stereotypes onto the pages—her characters' identities are complex and layered in various ways. In "The Simple Truth," we meet a Barnard graduate scornful of her mother's feminism but fixated on de Burgos, someone who lectures to her mother about unconditional love while self-consciously idealizing de Burgo's ill-fated affair with Dr. Juan Isidro Jimenes Grullón.

In "Holyoke, Mass.: An Ethnography," we are given Veronica, who is of course one character, but who could stand for an army of disadvantaged young women of color growing up in America. How many racist Miss O'Donnells must these girls face in their lives?

Veronicas, Rodriguez shows us, do not start off as hard-punching, smack-talking, bleach-haired tough girls. Like all of Rodriguez's "chimeras," like de Burgos herself, the world's Veronicas and this Veronica embody multiple truths, depending on who is listening...

• 爱情撒谎
• 丽贝卡·库斯伯特（Rebecca Cuthbert）（生物）

伊夫利斯·罗德里格斯（Ivelisse Rodriguez）在她的首张收藏集中向我们展示，爱情和战争并不存在二元对立面-它们甚至不是同一枚硬币的两侧，也不是其他任何陈词滥调所指向的线，即两者之间的分界线。爱是战争，是一种无定形的，不断变化的物质，永远弄脏它所消耗的东西。

读者应注意，朱莉娅·德·布尔戈斯（Julia de Burgos）的语录打开了第一个故事，这是其后的线索。著名的波多黎各诗人-妇女与独立的冠军，被爱人和恋人失望很多次-将会在随后的所有页面中四处出现，这对角色以及罗德里格斯本人都有了启发。几本传记都描绘了从布尔戈斯的心痛到她早逝的一条直线，这是没有人遗漏的。

罗德里格斯故事中的青春期声音也许是最尖锐的。她捕捉到了标志着那些岁月的所有痛苦和渴望，那时的希望是他们的顶峰，因此是他们最脆弱的时刻。在1950年代创作的《 El Que Diran》中，Noelia站在她的Quinceañera边缘，试图巩固她与美丽残酷的里卡多的关系。起初，她无视他的暴力，陷入了想象中的童话中，在那么多地方，教导了许多女孩相信这一点。她叙述道：“每次，我都被他的美丽打动了，波浪形的头发和酒窝。宽阔的肩膀和自满的微笑。” 她想象着“里卡多抱住她的手臂，他们的身体接触着”。她不愿透露他如何对待她：“僵硬的眼睛，炽烈的鼻孔，弯曲的嘴唇……。他在学校抓住了她的手臂，手指下的皮肤变红了。” 就像她的提亚·萝拉（Tia Lola）的处境一样，诺莉亚（Noelia）的状况也没有改善。

“内内之夏”是另一个充满热情和沮丧情绪的少年故事，为我们提供了该系列的众多礼物之一。罗德里格斯（Rodriguez）在这里描绘了吉米（Jimmy）和内内（Nene）这两个朋友之间的亲密同性恋关系，他们的社会生存取决于他们艰难的声誉-由于内内（Nene）患有残疾和长期患病，这使他们的生活更加困难。男孩们没有说出他们的爱；他们甚至从来没有承认过这一点。像罗德里格斯（Rodriguez）的其他角色一样，他们只是让它在他们之间痛苦。吉米解释说：“我们从不谈论自己的工作。” “我们的言语以打结的形式出现在我们的内心，瞥了一眼，并在我的背上短暂地抚摸着。” 吉米（Jimmy）从母亲，邻居，内内（Nene）那里学到的爱，也是你无法保留的。

These adolescents and new adults exist between cultures and communities in myriad ways. They are torn between the desire to blend in with mainstream society and the call to honor the notions of their more traditional parents. They want independence while they long for all-consuming love affairs. They switch effortlessly between English and Spanish, these Puerto Rican girls growing up in American cities, negotiating how much space they can take up in their schools, in their neighborhoods, in their homes.

Though this cross-culturalism is an obvious theme in the collection, Rodriguez does not stamp flat stereotypes onto the pages—her characters' identities are complex and layered in various ways. In "The Simple Truth," we meet a Barnard graduate scornful of her mother's feminism but fixated on de Burgos, someone who lectures to her mother about unconditional love while self-consciously idealizing de Burgo's ill-fated affair with Dr. Juan Isidro Jimenes Grullón.

In "Holyoke, Mass.: An Ethnography," we are given Veronica, who is of course one character, but who could stand for an army of disadvantaged young women of color growing up in America. How many racist Miss O'Donnells must these girls face in their lives?

罗德里格斯（Rodriguez）向我们展示了维罗妮卡斯（Veronicas），起初并不是硬汉，会说话，sm舌，白发硬朗的女孩。就像罗德里格斯（Rodriguez）的所有“嵌合体”一样，就像布尔戈斯（de Burgos）自己一样，世界上的维罗妮卡（Veronicas）和这个维罗妮卡（Veronica）体现了多个真理，这取决于谁在听。