Things I Cannot Say

Elssie Cano's writing is fearless. The contradictions her character Elina embodies bring to mind the film "Everything Everywhere All at Once," with its epic and anarchic sweep of history that threatens to engulf both her and, by extension, the reader. Teeming within Elina's tragi-comic "multiverse" live characters struggling to come to terms with the epic debates of our time--great migrations, the legacy of US imperialism, the violence and exploitation of capitalism, and the loss and disillusionment of failed attempts to change the system--as well as the more intimate and tender aspects of mother-daughter and mother-son relationships. Cano masterfully navigates with characteristic panache, as Elina attempts to outwit them all and maintain her humanity that is threatened at every turn.

Fred Arcoleo

George Washington Educational Campus, New York City

This novel is full of wonder, revelations, and intrigues. The book is focused on several narrators who reflect on the personality and the life story of a woman. She is egoistic, pretentious, manipulative and, at the same time, mesmerizing. The novel reflects on the attitudes and the modus vivendi of New York City. The text has two salient features: realism on the formal side of urban life, and a concern with the story of the United States and Latin America. Cano presents depictions of the American urban lifestyle, the valuation of the geopolitical context, migration, and family conflicts. Cano's book shows how anger can be transformed into a healing force for self-esteem, authentic power, spiritual fulfilment, and love.

Prof. Leonor Taiano

Carson-Newman University.

We do not read a family novel or a text of pain and resentment. It would be a confessional and intimate novel as if only tormented consciences existed to communicate them. But the narrative constantly appeals to the economic, social, and political world that frames any condition in society. The family is not formed in the bell of emptiness. It also grows and lives with the imprint of the historical context and therefore the narrative abounds in so much data of that political and even philosophical event.

Prof. John Estrada

Medgar Evers College-CUNY