I admit it. I recently clicked on a Bennifer headline as my first news of the day. Before I read about climate change, voting rights, insurrection, mass shootings, inflation or Ukraine, I celebrated the report that Jennifer Lopez and Ben Affleck finally got married.
There’s age-old appeal in a bumpy-road story that ends at the altar. The genre is irresistible to Hollywood and novelists; the challenge is to deliver a version that’s both recognizable and new. In “The Neapolitan Sisters,” Margo Candela uses the vehicle to drive us straight into the heart of a conflict-ridden family and their community.
Three sisters, raised in East Los Angeles, where the youngest still lives with her parents, take turns narrating the lead-up to the youngest sister’s wedding. Author Candela, who lives in San Francisco, grew up in Los Angeles as one of several sisters and the daughter of Mexican immigrants. She writes with a frank specificity that grounds the novel, her fifth. There’s love behind this book — and painful honesty, too.
Dulcina is the oldest. Sex, drugs and alcohol have just about killed her. She’s tending bar in San Francisco and hasn’t seen her family in two years. The middle sister, Claudia, has repeatedly saved her. Dulcina knows it’s way past time to stop taking and to survive on her own.
Claudia left her parents and younger sister behind in Boyle Heights, where gunshots were more common than car horns. She went to Princeton, became a movie producer and got rich. She’s the family fixer, throwing money at others’ problems while burying herself in therapy, hot yoga and work. Maritza, the youngest, is the bride from hell. She’s got a Disney princess complex and the mood board to prove it.
These broad outlines make the characters sound unoriginal, and at times their actions are, but their particularities run against stereotype, which adds complexity and fun. Dulcina, nicknamed Dooley, is smart; Claudia is raunchy; and Maritza is a shrewd businesswoman. Their father, a drunk, is a sweetheart. Their mother, a handwringer, is a cudgel. She was born in Mexico, and her husband’s parents were Jewish and Italian Catholic.
I laughed at Maritza parsing the point of Jordan almonds (the tooth-breaking candy that doubles as a wedding treat) and, later, her self-pitying sigh, “This must be exactly how Princess Diana felt.” Juggling their multiple identities, Claudia perfectly describes how others see her: “too much and too little of three things to be one or the other or the other. I identify as Latina, but there’s only so much diversity this business is willing to tolerate especially from a woman.”
如果在姐妹之间的争吵上花费更少的时间，而更多地播种了故事后期的启示，那么这本书可能会有更大的情感深度。但是，婚姻情节的现代粉丝知道，幸福的夫妻就像迪士尼梦一样是假的。我们只能希望，像詹妮弗（Jennifer）和本（Ben）一样，站在祭坛上的人们以一点点艰难的智慧到达，他们的眼睛终于睁开。
The Neapolitan Sisters
玛戈·坎德拉（Margo Candela）
(Alcove Press; 326 pgs.; $16.99)
Medicine for Nightmares Bookstore & Gallery presents Margo Candela with Reyna Grande:In-person. 4 p.m. Aug. 21. Free. 3036 24th St., S.F. 415-824-1761.www.medicinefornightmares.com