May 2009
Melanie A. Pérez Ortiz’s “Irene Vilar: Critique of Self-Sacrifice…”
Laura Halperin’s “Rape’s Shadow: Seized Freedoms in Irene Vilar’s ‘The Ladies’ Gallery’”
Mirta Ojito article in The New York Times
“Ms. Vilar, who prefers discussing poetry to politics, says she wrote the book not to add to or detract from her grandmother’s near-mythic status, but to give a voice to herself and to her dead mother, Gladys Mendez. Both, she says, have languished in the shadow of Ms. Lebron.”
Bob Shacochis, author of Easy In The Islands
“I have never read a book like Impossible Motherhood, Irene Vilar’s disturbing, heart-wrenching, and ultimately triumphant memoir, for the simple and understandable reason that no one of her gender has ever summoned the brutally raw, transcendent courage to write such a book—and yes, confess to such a troubling story.”
—Bob Shacochis, author of Easy In The Islands
Junot Diaz, author The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
“Impossible Motherhood is another dark perfect gem from Irene Vilar and a journey into a harrowing underworld but guided by Vilar's gifts and her light we emerge in the end transformed, enlightened and oh so alive. ”
—Junot Diaz, author The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao
Rosario Ferre, author of The House on the Lagoon
“Profoundly moving and beautifully written”
—Rosario Ferre, author of The House on the Lagoon
Bob Shacochis, author of Swimming in the Volcano
“The Ladies Gallery is destined to become a legendary work.”
—Bob Shacochis, author of Swimming in the Volcano
Detroit Free Press Notable Book of the Year
“These are postcards from the edge... heartbreaking... funny... political... breathtakingly beautiful.”
—Detroit Free Press (Notable Book of the Year)
St. Louis Post Dispatch
“Just as artist Frida Kahlo's splintered self-portarits and diaries personify Mexico's proud yet fragmentyed self-image, Vilar's intimate accounts about herself and her family personlaize Puerto Rico's political, social, and cultural wars for its identity. The potency of Vilar's tale arises from its telling...The Ladies' Gallery can liberate readers, yet this is more than a self-help book. It is a lesson in acquiring spiritual grace and understanding from a young woman who has plenty of both.”
—St. Louis Post Dispatch
Aurora Levins Morales, The Women’s Review of Books
“Lolita Lebron's granddaughter, heir to the most public female embodiment of heroic self-sacrifice in Puerto Rico in this century, has written a memoir full of searing, intimate truths, silences broken open to reveal the personal costs of public myth making...A momentous act of courage.
”
—Aurora Levins Morales, The Women's Review of Books
Carolyn See, Washington Post
“Vilar is writing about three generations of Puerto Rican women...enchantresses and destroyers, the main people they destroy tend to be themselves...But in Vilar's case, talent, coupled with intelligence, still holds the winning hand.”
—Carolyn See, Washington Post
Gail Caldwell Boston Globe
“This memoir introduces us to a writer bound to make an impact...An autobiography as fantastic as any novel...It is a mark of Vilar's art that her story seems warm and alive”
—Gail Caldwell, Boston Globe
Miami Herald
“A hartrending and dramatic literary debut, wherein Vilar reveals the dark side her parents always tried to suppress”
—Miami Herald
Suzanne Ruta
“A beautiful memoir, humorous and compassionate”
—Suzanne Ruta, Newsday
Carlin Romano on TLG
“Startling, raw, and affecting, a painful exercise in which memoir as therapy becomes memoir as art.”
—Carlin Romano, Philadelphia Inquirer (Notable Book of The Year)