Soledad by Angie Cruz is
set in the Washington Heights neighborhood of Manhattan, a borough of New York City. Its
characters are drawn mainly from the Dominican-American community in the neighborhood and
reflect that hyphenated identity. This is a complex identity in that the Dominican Republic has
a heritage blending French, African, Spanish and English as well as indigenous cultures,
although the majority of Dominicans are descended from Africans originally brought as slaves.
The main characters of the novel are:
Soledad€‹
is a talented young artist with a scholarship to Cooper Union who returns home to care for her
mother. Much of the novel revolves around her attempts to reconcile her world as an artist with
the world of her family and how she synthesizes her Dominican roots with her artistic
ideals.
Olivia is Soledad's mother who has
fallen into a psychosomatic coma. She is a widow and bears secrets concerning the family history
which are gradually revealed to Soledad.
Flaca
is Soledads wild and rebellious teenage cousin who forms a love triangle with Soledad and
Richie, a fellow neighborhood teen rebel. She proves to be bright and talented by the end of the
story.
Richie is to external appearances a bit
of a thug but actually is a talented musician, sensitive and thoughtful.
Tia Gorda, Soledad's aunt, is a "bruja" or witch
who tries to treat her sister's illness and represents Dominican spiritualism and traditional
beliefs.
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