Woman Hollering Creek and Other Stories

Ranging from prose lyrics of less than a page to much lengthier (but still lyrical) fictions, these stories are eloquent testimonials to the status of Mexican-American women. Cisneros ( The House on Mango Street ) introduces a cast of Chicanas from the environs of San Antonio, Tex., letting us eavesdrop on a series of interior monologues as well crafted as they are expressive. She begins with the self-conscious yet spontaneous effusions of young girls (``You laughing something into my ear that tickles, and me going Ha Ha Ha Ha''), then turns to preadolescents and young women; her speakers evince a shared, uneasy awareness that their self-worth depends on a loyalty to Mexico strained, all the same, by the realities of their lives up North. The restless vamp of ``Never Marry a Mexican'' feels ``ridiculous'' as ``a Mexican girl who couldn't even speak Spanish,'' and cultivates a contempt for her white lover (``nude as a pearl. You've lost your train of smoke'') and his wife (``alive under the flannel and down, and smelling like milk and hand cream'')--but she is not sure just what she is envying. In this sensitively structured suite of sketches, however, Cisneros's irony defers to her powers of observation, so that feminism and cultural imperialism, while important issues here, do not overwhelm the narrative. Author tour. (Apr.)