A House of My Own: Stories from My Life (Vintage International)

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What I found there instead is something a lot more cohesive than expected—and a something easily accessible to anyone interested in how creative people keep the well from drying up. It includes those questions that she’d like to ask, that she’s too shy to ask, and that most clients surely want to ask: “Do you approve of me, or am I silly? Her voice is strong over three decades; this collection of non-fiction details her thoughts and movements well. While it may help to be familiar with The House on Mango Street at the very least (and if you aren't, why not acquaint yourself with a book that takes only a hour or two to read but will honestly stay with you forever?

She misses her planned meeting with her nemesis, causing him to rage, but she says, “I’d chosen my writing over a man. So reading A House of My Own: Stories from My Life felt like I had a front row seat to interview after interview (even though this isn't the format the book takes) in which she relates society, culture, and politics to how her life and her art have unfolded. I expected this to be a memoir told in stories; instead, it's a collection of introductions to books and essays she read at various speaking events.I'm biased as a Latina, but recommend this as a Latina who is slowly becoming proud of her roots and learning to see the beauty. With this collection--spanning three decades, and including never-before-published work--Cisneros has come home at last. Here is an exuberant, deeply moving celebration of a life in writing lived to the fullest—an important milestone in a storied career.

She doesn't do talks or interviews very often and the ones she does are recorded even less frequently. She seamlessly weaves "memories" from her life from 1984 through 2014 (some written for specific audiences and expanded in this volume). Cisneros is brilliant but the book is a bit long and feels occasionally disjointed, as a patchwork collection can. She reaches her hand across the aisle and I feel like Cisneros’s sister rather than only una extraña gringa.She also talks about her process so much and creating specific works that it made me want to go through her entire bibliography and read everything. She began what would become a life-long journey to find a place where she felt comfortable to be her fullest self: where, if she wanted to, she could "leave [her] hair uncombed, walk around barefoot, be rude. Cisneros is best known for T he House on Mango Street, about Esperanza, a Mexican-American girl who turns to writing for solace from her chaotic Chicago family life. Cisneros is right there in the room, fiercely candid, warm and gracious, talking about everything: the best recipe for mole, her humiliating fifth-grade report card, the men in her life, her dreams about old houses and forgotten pets--and writing, always writing.

In her essay, "A Tango for Astor,": Young people get in line to meet the author and have their book autographed I am the author they've come to meet. She brings up the art and artists that have influenced her life in various ways - my favourite bits of the book - and the effects of her upbringing on her work, her observations of the towns and houses she's lived in and of course the people shaped within those environments.

Throughout each story, though written for a diverse smattering of purposes and people, is Cisneros’s constant molding of words like clay. We see the hyper-intellectual or code-breaking aspect of writing discussed in ways that exclude huge amounts of people from participating in the joys and revelations associated with the life of the mind.

She's the sort of person who says "Me too" and suddenly everything you've ever dealt with or thought or felt feels just a smidge less lonely. Almost everything she wrote in these essays are things I feel, have felt, have experienced, or expect to experience as I grow.Like many other American youths, my first encounter with Sandra Cisneros’ work was her vignette series The House on Mango Street.