THE FORTUNE OF CARMEN NAVARRO by Jen Bryant, Knopf, October 2010, 240p., ISBN: 978-0-375-85759-1

"Love lost, such a cost..."

-- Neil Young

"You see this little notebook here, the one with coffee stains and the red ribbon to mark my place?  I bring it with me to work and keep it below the counter.  Whenever I get a break, I write down a few lines -- maybe something one of the soccer mommies said, or some detail about a rich guy's tie, or maybe the look on that shy cadet's face when his friend asks me for cigarettes. 

"Then at home again, when mis abuelos are asleep in their bed, I drink a mug of strong coffee and slip into the basement with my guitar.  I sit on the old green couch and I try to remember my mother's voice.  Abuelita, she does not talk about my mother, but one time she says, 'Your mother had a beautiful voice and she would sing like a bird when she was happy.'  So I remember this -- and I use it.  My only connection to her.  I think about my mother's voice and I strum a few chords.  I read over the pages in my notebook.  I sing the lines I have written, then I switch them around.  I listen for a melody, for something that makes a good refrain.  Sometimes I am there for two, three, four hours and nothing good happens.  I play more chords, I try this melody and that one.  I try again.  Nothing.

"But sometimes I can spin a whole song from one little thing and then when I find just the right rhythm, just the right notes -- aah!  It's like when you are playing poker and the dealer hands you a royal flush, or when you are walking home and you smell the wind and you know that it will rain hard in exactly two minutes and you run inside just in time.

"It is like offering a flower to a shy boy and knowing for certain that he will think of you day and night until he sees you again.  It is a gift.  A power like magic -- Gypsy magic.

"I have it."

The other day, I drove a couple of hours southward to booktalk to classes of middle school students who were barely born when the first Harry Potter book was published here; who were so young as to have been barely aware of the Clinton presidency or 9/11 when these events were actually taking place; and who are young people growing up having never known a world without Google. 

In the course of booktalking the fiction, nonfiction and picturebooks for older readers to which I was introducing these students, I reminisced to them about my own pre-Title IX years in middle- and high school; and told them about being a young reader viewing columns of job ads in Newsday back when there was a section for men's positions and a section for women's positions.  I spoke about growing up in an era when there had never been a woman on the US Supreme Court and how the coolest girl I knew in high school -- a brilliant young woman who, like me, eventually became a college instructor -- was advised by her high school guidance counselor that she should be applying to two-year rather than four-year colleges.

Here in the Twenty-first century, gender inequity in America is not anywhere near as outrageous as it was during my own adolescence.  On the other hand, corporate interests continue to trailblaze new lows in their never-ending quest to persuade teenage girls that what is most important in life has to do with looks and boys and product consumption.  In light of such a world, I find so much to recommend about Carman Navarro and her determination to succeed.

Based loosely upon the famous opera and novella Carmen, THE FORTUNE OF CARMAN NAVARRO is narrated by two pairs of best friends.  Ryan, the younger sibling in a career military family, and his life-long best friend, Will, room together at the Valley Forge Military Academy.  Maggie, who is a high school vocational tech student, and her life-long best friend Carmen, who dropped out at sixteen, live across the street from one another and work together at a nearby convenience store. 

The story's central conflict involves Ryan's increasingly out-of-control obsession with possessing the stunningly beautiful Carmen, and Carmen's determination to not be deterred by any boy's longings in her quest to become a famous singer.  Sure, she enjoys the attention of guys, and is intrigued by the quiet young cadet who becomes inspiration for her songwriting.  But Carmen also so clearly informs Ryan about her priorities.  

Unfortunately Ryan is running his own script in his head -- as he lets the rest of his life fall apart -- and so does not hear what Carmen is so clearly telling him. 

Fortunately, author Jen Bryant foregoes any temptation to over-sensationalize the story by having the main character die (as happens in the opera).  Instead of tragedy, this Carmen will live to continue on her path toward achieving what is most important to her.

What also contributes so significantly to the strength of this story are the voices of the other two friends/narrators.  We learn so much about Carmen and Ryan through watching and listening to Maggie and Will, their respective best and oldest friends.   

While others may characterize THE FORTUNE OF OF CARMEN NAVARRO as a tale of tragic love, I cannot help but see it, instead, as the triumph of a girl with guts who is making her way on her own terms. 

Richie Partington, MLIS
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FTC NOTICE: Richie receives free books from lots of publishers who hope he will Pick their books.  You can figure that any review was written after reading and dog-earring a free copy received.  Richie retains these review copies for his rereading pleasure and for use in his booktalks at schools and libraries.