So Far from God

By Ana Castillo

1993

First Published

3.89

Average Rating

256

Number of Pages

7H49M

Audio Length

The beloved feminist classic of Chicano literature that "could be the offspring of a union between One Hundred Years of Solitude and General Hospital : a sassy, magical, melodramatic love child who won’t sit down―and the reader can hope―will never shut up…As readable as a teen-aged sister’s secret diary―and as impossible to resist" (Barbara Kingsolver, Los Angeles Times Book Review ). "Wacky, wild, y bien funny." ―Sandra Cisneros, author of The House of Mango Street and Women Hollering Creek "Castillo is una storyteller de primera… So Far from God is the novel that wasn’t there before but which I’d been missing.” ―Julia Alvarez, author of How the García Girls Lost Their Accents In Tome, a small, seemingly sleepy New Mexico hamlet, Sofia and her four fated daughters reveal a world of marvels where the comic and horrific, past and present, real and fantastic coexist and collide. Over two crowded decades, Sofia tries to hold things together following the disappearance of her husband, Domingo, he of the Clark Gable mustache and the uncontrollable gambling habit. Adventurous Esperanza, Chicana campus radical turned television news reporter, travels farthest from home only to be reeled back in spirit. Beautiful Caridad, a nurse who dulls the pain of being jilted with nightly bouts of alcohol and anonymous sex finally finds love again―and a sharp drop off a tall cliff. Practical Fe, dutiful bank worker who wishes more than anything for stability, upon being dumped by her fiancé, lets out a year-long primal scream. And mysterious La Loca, dies (maybe?) and is resurrected at age three, leaving her both attuned to higher spiritual frequencies and allergic to human touch. Exuberant and powerful, funny and profound, So Far from God is “a hymn to the endurance of women, both physical and spiritual” ( Washington Post Book World ).

Avg Rating

3.89

Number of Ratings

4,369

5 STARS

32%

4 STARS

36%

3 STARS

24%

2 STARS

1 STARS

goodreads

Author

Ana Castillo

Author · 17 books

Ana Castillo (June 15, 1953-) is a celebrated and distinguished poet, novelist, short story writer, essayist, editor, playwright, translator and independent scholar. Castillo was born and raised in Chicago. She has contributed to periodicals and on-line venues (Salon and Oxygen) and national magazines, including More and the Sunday New York Times. Castillo’s writings have been the subject of numerous scholarly investigations and publications. Among her award winning, best sellling titles: novels include So Far From God, The Guardians and Peel My Love like an Onion, among other poetry: I Ask the Impossible. Her novel, Sapogonia was a New York Times Notable Book of the Year. She has been profiled and interviewed on National Public Radio and the History Channel and was a radio-essayist with NPR in Chicago. Ana Castillo is editor of La Tolteca, an arts and literary ‘zine dedicated to the advancement of a world without borders and censorship and was on the advisory board of the new American Writers Museum, which opened its door in Chicago, 2017. In 2014 Dr. Castillo held the Lund-Gil Endowed Chair at Dominican University, River Forest, IL and served on the faculty with Bread Loaf Summer Program (Middlebury College) in 2015 and 2016. She also held the first Sor Juana Inés de la Cruz Endowed Chair at DePaul University, The Martin Luther King, Jr Distinguished Visiting Scholar post at M.I.T. and was the Poet-in-Residence at Westminster College in Utah in 2012, among other teaching posts throughout her extensive career. Ana Castillo holds an M.A from the University of Chicago and a Ph.D., University of Bremen, Germany in American Studies and an honorary doctorate from Colby College. She received an American Book Award from the Before Columbus Foundation for her first novel, The Mixquiahuala Letters. Her other awards include a Carl Sandburg Award, a Mountains and Plains Booksellers Award, and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts in fiction and poetry. She was also awarded a 1998 Sor Juana Achievement Award by the Mexican Fine Arts Center Museum in Chicago. Dr. Castillo’s So Far From God and Loverboys are two titles on the banned book list controversy with the TUSD in Arizona. 2013 Recipient of the American Studies Association Gloria Anzaldúa Prize to an independent scholar. via www.anacastillo.net