cover image Let Their Spirits Dance

Let Their Spirits Dance

Stella Pope Duarte. Harper, $24.95 (336pp) ISBN 978-0-06-018637-1

A cross-country trip to the Vietnam Wall is the subject of Let Their Spirits Dance, Stella Pope Duarte's tearjerker of a first novel (Fragile Nights, a collection of short stories, was published in 1998). Elementary school teacher Teresa Ramirez is skeptical when her ailing 80-year-old mother hears voices telling her to make a pilgrimage to touch her son's name on the wall, but the whole extended Ramirez family and assorted friends set out to drive to Washington, making a name for themselves along the way. Duarte's narrative is meandering, but the density of the detail she packs in gives the novel emotional clout and historical depth. (May)