Bodega Dreams (2000) by Ernesto Quinonez

 1,001 Novels: A Library of America

Bodega Dreams (2000)

by Ernesto Quinonez

Spanish Harlem, New York

New York: 41/105

Harlem: 8/14

Bodega Dreams was another Busman's Holiday:   A novel largely about organized crime in New York City in the early 1990's, with a Robin Hood/Spanish Harlem vibe.  The central figure, though not the protagonist or narrator, is the neighborhood kingpin, Bodega.  Bodega dreams of a larger New York empire and of reinvigorating Spanish Harlem. To that end he allies himself with crooked lawyer Nazario and together they buy and renovate decrepit Spanish Harlem apartment buildings while plying crack in the same neighborhood.  It's a common feature of narrative around the crack epidemic that local dealers destroyed their own neighborhood and that fights over territory to sell crack caused most of the violence in that period.

  It's a critical conflict that the author completely omits other than a few glancing questions asked by the protagonist/narrator, a local college student with a pregnant, evangelical wife at home.   That omission, combined with the Audiobook narration, in "tough guy" New York accent, made Bodega Dreams a chore.  It did make me want to visit Spanish Harlem- a place inside New York City I've never been.  I actually did stay in Harlem once on a visit over twenty years ago.

  Halfway done with Harlem, which is my favorite chapter/subchapter so far. Also, I'd already read a third of these titles before I started, which moves things along.  A stand out from this early period is Enormous Radio- which has a surreal element that I didn't associate with Cheever before reading it.   From there Cheever starts his series of stories in Shady Hill, New York