Women Surrounded by Water: A Memoir

by Patricia Coral

Overview

Longlisted, 2024 National Book Critics Circle Award, Autobiography Growing up in Puerto Rico, Patricia Coral was surrounded by women who fought for their needs amid the demands of domesticity and who were dismissed and judged when they rejected any predetermined paths on an island that itself has never been free. At age twenty-five, she married her first love, a green-eyed musician whose internal storms drove Coral to slowly realize that the marriage must end. Faced with disillusionment—with her husband, with the patriarchal expectations that surrounded her like the Caribbean Sea, and with the limited options available to her—she leaves, only for Hurricane Maria to wrench her heart homeward. Coral evokes the beauty, love, and language of her family and of Puerto Rico as well as the pain of yearning for more. Tastes, colors, and the dreamlike lushness of childhood memories infuse this mournful and propulsive memoir of personal and natural disasters—and the self-discovery made possible only when we choose what to leave behind.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780814259252
Publisher:	Ohio State University Press
Publication date:	11/01/2024
Series:	Machete
Pages:	152
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.71(d)

About the Author

Patricia Coralis a bilingual Puerto Rican writer. She holds an MFA in creative writing from American University, where she received the Myra Sklarew Award and where she was Editor in Chief of FOLIO. Coral writes creative nonfiction and poet

Read an Excerpt

The Women Who Test the Waters

Patricia

I was raised to fear the water.
And I grew up in a Caribbean island. It was like being raised to be afraid of myself. They didn’t teach me about my strengths, only the dangers of who I was.
I was raised to believe that water could kill me. That I could drown any minute. The beach was dangerous, and I should stay safe on the shore.
I was born in a body they named woman to a family that prefers men.
I was born a redhead in a country of brunettes. Strong-willed for a woman, too talkative for a student, too thick, too masculine to be feminine, too feminine to be masculine.
I was born too everything. An excess. Always out of place. And I was not a man. I was supposed to obey.
I grew up between unwanted stares and invisibility. Excessive control and disproportions.
And sometimes there was also love. When I didn’t feel I had to try to apologize for being who I was.
 

The One Who Learns to Swim in Pools

Abuela built a pool in her backyard for me to swim in, or so they told me, that it was for me. She never learned how to swim, but she wanted me to have a pool. Mami didn’t want me to drown, so she took me to swimming lessons, since she couldn’t stop her mother-in-law from building a pool. During the first lessons, my mom had to sit on the edge of the pool, her legs inside the water. I’d hold on to them while I learned how to move mine up and down, one leg at a time.
 

Titi Carla

When I was a child, Titi Carla was my freedom. We had a lot of fun singing loud to Ednita Nazario’s songs anytime she drove me around in her red Pontiac. Sometimes she took me to Toys “R” Us and bought me any Barbie or Polly Pockets or Cabbage Patch Kids I wanted. The best days ended with us seated at the edge of the pool, eating a pile of chicken tenders from Golden Skillet, moving our legs inside the water.

As a woman, I could aspire to only two things: to be married to someone, an educated man, or to end up alone like Titi Carla. Es que ustedes son idénticas. You are just like her, they used to tell me whenever we were together or I was too angry, or too fat, or too unruly.

My family could see only her singleness, her tallness, her fatness. Tan sola. Poor Carla. She’s bad-tempered because she never got married. If you didn’t have a man who loved you, who could prove you were loveable, you were incomplete. Unhappy. Worthy of pity. A half-human. Women were raised to believe it until they internalized it. Maybe that’s why I wasn’t afraid to jump into a dysfunctional relationship as soon as I had the chance of love at seventeen.
 

The Good Girl

I never eloped with the boyfriend they forbade me to be with. I thought I would starve if I did and have to go back defeated to my parents’ house. Marriage was expected from well-behaved girls. If they had a little self-respect. God forbid we dared to announce we were going to move in with someone.

I turned twenty-five and married him.

Table of Contents

Proyectos Domésticos: Land The Women Who Test the Waters Marriage Addictions I A Prayer for Mercy Don’t Leave Him Alone Marriage Addictions II A Prayer for Miracles Bisabuela Minia The Women in the Kitchen A Prayer for the Ones Who Lost All Domestic Romance The Women I Grew Up With Marriage Addictions III A Hopeless Prayer Madera Mala The Untamed Women A Prayer for Acceptance Abuela Mery Before Us Aislamientos: Shore uno: exiles The Dual or Multiple Prayers for the Ones Who Emigrate Diasporic Essay I Diasporic Essay II Diasporic Essay III Diasporic Essay IV A Prayer for the One Who Doesn’t Return The Women Who Are Not the One La Isla dos: storms The Storms Hit Broken House Ruta Panorámica The One Who Sends Boxes The Women Who Survive Hurricanes Hurricane Memorials tres: burials Boxes to Carry The Women Who Are Wrapped in Sheets Hurricane María Antonia Camino a Casa: Ocean After the Three Longest Minutes Abuela Geo Cooking Lessons After the Hurricane Author’s Pic The One Who Learns to Swim in the Ocean Author’s Note Acknowledgments Works Referenced

Editorial Reviews

Puerto Rican poet Coral's haunting, lyrical memoir will captivate readers drawn to raw, introspective storytelling.…With vivid imagery and emotional depth, Coral’s narrative becomes a poignant meditation on how family history and place shape identity.” —Roxane Pico-Lenz, Booklist


“With all the garbage talk from 45 about the beautiful island of Puerto Rico, it’s imperative to learn the truth about it from the people themselves. This immersive debut memoir is full of robust imagery and lyrical stories of one family of Puerto Rican women.” —Karla J. Strand, Ms.


"Whatever you think you know about Puerto Rico, think again. This gorgeous memoir is intimate, profoundly feminist at heart, and one of the most loving books you’ll read this year." —Hannah Grieco, Washington City Paper


“Women Surrounded by Water is a memoir-song-ode-manifesto-rosary to the Puerto Rican women of a family with ghosts for men. In the colonial context of the archipelago’s countryside, the men look to the national culture for identity and come away br


“In Women Surrounded by Water, Patricia Coral takes on the silenced history of Puerto Rican women and what writer Anjannette Delgado calls 'our sexile.' Revisiting the history of her ancestras, Coral tells her story while giving voice to three gene

"Poetic, intelligent, formally and culturally hybrid, and emotionally powerful, Women Surrounded by Water offers an important meditation on gender, family, imperialism, and natural disasters, amplified by factors like anthropogenic climate change and official indifference. It also introduces into the creative nonfiction genre an eloquent, sensitive, and talented new voice." —Glen Retief, River Teeth

“A beautiful and intimate memoir with a lot of heart.” —Adam Vitcavage, Debutiful

"Women Surrounded by Water is a genre-bending journey through the liminal spaces of healing....Infused with rich sensory detail and powerful scenic work, the fragmented form is an intimate examination of the narrator’s own debris as she finds power in salvaging the pieces that matter most....This book is an ode, a goodbye, a memory." —Jamie Hennick, Colorado Review

From the Publisher