When Tito Loved Clara

For 15 years, Tito Moreno has carried a torch for Clara Lugo, his lost love. Shortly after high school graduation, Clara escaped an abusive home in their New York City Dominican neighborhood and completed her education. Now she lives in the suburbs, married with a child, working as a librarian, while Tito, still living with his parents, is in the same dead-end job he had in high school. Alternating chapters follow both protagonists through the crises that will briefly reunite them. At the same time, in each chapter there is a flashback to their childhoods and the events that separated them. This bittersweet first novel by the head librarian at the New Yorker creates a vivid if somewhat depressing portrait of the Dominican émigré community in this tale with no genuine happy endings. Nonetheless, the author has drawn an indelible portrait of a woman doggedly overcoming every obstacle in her path.