Ocotillo Dreams
by Melinda Palacio
Bilingual Review Press
(July, 2011: 198 pages)
Paperback: $16.00
Reviewed by Frank Mundo
In poet Melinda Palacio‘s debut novel, Ocotillo Dreams, we meet a young woman named Isola, a green-eyed, “exotic-looking” Mexican-American “often mistaken for Thai or Filipino” whose mother’s death couldn’t have come at a worse time in her life. Just one fellowship short of becoming a full professor in San Francisco, Isola, drowning in credit card debt, lawyer fees and student loans, is suddenly forced to put her future on hold to settle her mother’s estate in Chandler, Arizona.
Her plan is to temporarily relocate to Chandler, pack up her mother’s house and sell it as quickly as possible and return to her life in San Francisco. With the help of her lawyer, Isola figures the whole process should only take a couple of weeks at most. But Isola, self-absorbed and a bit spoiled, has more baggage than she realizes. The self-proclaimed “reigning champ of awkward moments,” Isola discovers Cruz Zarate, a handsome stranger sleeping in her mother’s house, which is just one of the many startling secrets of her mother’s hidden life that challenge Isola’s understanding of her troubled relationship with her mother, her unresolved issues with her father’s death (and her inheritance) and her strange obsession over the break-up with her boyfriend three years before.
Read the rest at Frank Mundo’s LA Books Examiner.
About the author
Melinda Palacio was born in Huntington Park, California. She studied Comparative Literature at UC Berkeley and earned a graduate degree in the same field at UC Santa Cruz. She is a 2007 PEN USA Emerging Voices Rosenthal Fellow.
Frank Mundo is the author of The Brubury Tales and Gary, the Four-Eyed Fairy. For the latest updates to LA Books Examiner subscribe to this page and follow me on Twitter @LaBooksExaminer.
Khadija Anderson, returned in 2008 to her native Los Angeles after 18 years exile in Seattle. Khadija’s poetry has been published in Pale House (forthcoming), The Ark Magazine, Unfettered Verse, CommonLine Project, Qarrtsiluni, Gutter Eloquence, Unlikely, The Citron Review, Killpoet, Wheelhouse, and Phantom Seed among others. Her poem “Islam for Americans” was nominated for a 2010 Pushcart Prize. Khadija holds an MFA in Creative Writing from Antioch University Los Angeles and her first book will be published in 2012 through Writ Large Press.
Melissa Chadburn is a lover and a fighter, a community organizer, a social arsonist, a writer, a lesbian, of color, smart, edgy and fun. Her work has appeared or is upcoming in Guernica, PANK Magazine, WordRiot, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, Splinter Generation, Northville Review and she is a regular contributor at The Nervous Breakdown. She interns at dzanc books and is a proud member of the Advisory Board for Antioch University’s Lunch Ticket. She loves pit bulls and cheese.
Lisa Cheby is a poet and educator in Los Angeles. She recently completed her poetry manuscript, Stop and Read Yourself for the First Time, and is developing her critical writing on confessional poetry and gender, both projects she started while completing her MFA at Antioch University. Lisa is currently working on a chapbook, Harmony was Always Here, and a series, Love Lessons from Buffy the Vampire Slayer. Lisa worked on the Board of Directors of the Valley Contemporary Poets, a non-profit organization working to promote quality poetry to the San Fernando Valley and is the new editor of 
