Mariposa's Song

LaSalle's (Tell Borges If You See Him) new novel is brief, but it feels expansive with its continued breathlessness, the whole book an uninterrupted sentence. The novel follows Mariposa, a pretty young woman who has recently emigrated from Honduras to East Austin, Tex., where she works as a bar girl at El P%C3%A1jaro Verde, a local night club. Magnetic for Mariposa's consciousness are her grandmother's song ("La Canci%C3%B3n de Mariposa"), invasive images of her immigration story, and physical scarring at her first job in the U.S., but above all, her desperate desire to learn English as the first step to the American middle class. Though she has a suitor, Ignacio, among the club regulars, she is drawn into a cathartic conversation with an older American man; she feels comforted by him in part because he seems to sense and mirror her desire while validating her love for Honduras and the Spanish language. He promises her a path to a better life and she promises to meet with him in a motel the next day to iron out the details. But then a police hunt for a murderer matching the description of the American is revealed. Mariposa's raw desire to escape club life is well rendered; the novel's single-sentence structure conveys its urgency. The revelation of the police hunt may offer a plot framework, but it comes at the cost of breaking the trance that had so carefully captured the reader. (Oct.)