The Time It Snowed in Puerto Rico
by SARAH McCOY

In this luminous debut coming-of-age novel, a young woman struggles to accept and love her changing homeland, culture, family life, and self, against the backdrop of tumultuous 1960s Puerto Rico.

Verdita Ortiz-Santiago has spent 11 long years in her sleepy Puerto Rican mountain town, and she is desperate for change. After all, everything else is changing around her. Mamá has announced that she is pregnant, Papi is spending more time at the jíbaros bar discussing politics and watching the cockfights, and the whole island seems trapped in the struggle to stay linked to the United States or to fight for independence.

For Verdita, the choice is easy. In the States, her life would be perfect, just like Dick and Jane’s in her textbooks. She would be free to sing Elvis songs, eat hamburguesas at every meal, and maybe sort out her feelings for her American friend Blake, whose accidental touch made her feel she would burst into flame.

Like the classics Annie John and The House on Mango Street, The Time It Snowed in Puerto Rico delves into the conflicting feelings we have for the people we love and the difficulties of leaving one’s homeland for places unknown. Sarah McCoy handles Verdita’s struggles with striking insight and lyrical prose.

SARAH McCOY has taught writing at Old Dominion University and the University of Texas at El Paso. She lives in El Paso, where she’s working on her next novel.