Is it overwrought and cliched to inform one other story a few lady looking for herself overseas? Perhaps, however Nikki Vargas is keen to problem that. In her memoir, “Name You Once I Land,” the Chicago-born Colombian-American journey aficionado is on the lookout for herself, satisfied she belongs anyplace however in New York Metropolis. Sound acquainted?
Effectively, this isn’t your mom’s “Eat, Pray, Love”—partially as a result of it lacks the stakes that Gilbert’s 2006 memoir has. Though “Name You Once I Land” has all of the bones for a whirlwind drama—together with a love curiosity the narrator runs away from, in addition to a penchant to get away from the banalities of day by day life—an absence of lingering is the place Vargas falters. Characters are launched, given little scenic background about who they’re, after which dropped. Maybe it’s as a result of “Name You Once I Land” reads much less like a memoir, and extra like a collection of loosely linked essays—a few of which construct on one another, a few of which don’t. Some chapters within the memoir appear to be constructing to some extent, a scenario, or some motion, however we’re typically left with a mushy telling of what occurred as an alternative of seeing all of it play out in entrance of us. As a reader, it detaches me from the feelings I need to be feeling alongside Vargas as our narrator.
However for what the e book lacks in character growth, it makes up for in imagery and self-analysis. One of many memoir’s stronger sections is Vargas’ scrutiny of her Colombian id whereas rising up within the Chicago suburbs. “I needed I appeared and sounded extra Colombian,” she writes. “My pores and skin is white… I’m disillusioned to say I don’t have a touch of an accent except I’m ordering one thing like a burrito.” That is the place Vargas takes the time essential to dive deeper into her relationships along with her Colombian father and grandmother in addition to discussing the civil unrest—which was partially, as a consequence of FARC, a narco-terrorist group of their residence nation—which has given her a “duality” of what Colombia meant to her rising up.
By way of travels, her amorous affairs, and perception concerning the actuality of attempting to “make it” as a author, it’s Vargas’ title which may be our key to understanding the memoir. Her household, she writes within the introduction, is superstitious. “We at all times textual content one another earlier than takeoff, with the easy promise of ‘I’ll name you after I land.’” And all through the e book, Vargas’ household—chosen or blood—adjustments, and thus, the “you,” adjustments. Perhaps that is what Vargas desires from her reader: to indicate us you’ll find household and love within the unlikeliest of locations, and within the unlikeliest of instances.
“Name You Once I Land: A Memoir”
By Nikki Vargas
Hanover Sq. Press, 288 pages