On Being A Late Bloomer

That is what learning is. You suddenly understand something
you’ve understood all your life, but in a different way—Doris Lessing

I’ve always been a late bloomer. My parents never heard the word “precocious” when my teachers summoned them for conferences. Instead, terms like “easily distracted,” “unfocused,” and “undisciplined” always made them leave Vernon Avenue School, in South Central Los Angeles, with a frown. Even when I was attentive in class, trying my best to capture whatever concept the teacher was trying to get through to us, the light went on in my head long after my peers had understood. But when it finally did, boy, did it shine brightly.

Bernardo and the Virgin was published when I was fifty-one. It wasn’t my first attempt at writing a novel. Two completed manuscripts, and another one that was shelved half way through—all three written in my late thirties—are today lost, mercifully, casualties of my many moves. For years I consoled myself with the thought that I gave my dream of becoming a published novelist my best shot, but the itch to write creatively never went away. But by then, wholly engaged in the pursuit of my doctorate, I chose to retreat to the sanctified halls of scholarly writing.

As far back as I can remember I’ve enjoyed putting my thoughts down on paper. Like many Latino and Latina writers, I grew up in a culture where spinning a good yarn is highly regarded. As a youngster I spent many hours in rapture, listening tirelessly to the gifted storytellers in my extended family. Thanks to them, I learned early in life how to sense when I was in the presence of a great story.

As a novelist, my breakthrough came after I completed writing Julia Alvarez: A Critical Companion, for Greenwood Press. For this study of the Dominican-American’s novels, the press’ editorial rules required that I divide the chapters into sections that explore plot development and structure, point of view, character development, and thematic issues. Diving headfirst into Alvarez’s work (who, incidentally, is one of my literary heroes) in this straightforward, fundamental manner (as opposed to viewing the novel through the lenses of highly esoteric literary theories, like I had been trained to do in graduate school), allowed me to glimpse the novelist’s craft from within. This time the light went on with a fiery explosion. I now understood exactly how to go about writing a novel.

So, at a somewhat late age, Bernardo and the Virgin was finished. Elaine Markson, after reading the novel, agreed to become my agent, and Northwestern University Press decided to take a chance on an unknown and easily-distracted middle-aged writer.

Getting back to being a late-bloomer, I take solace in the knowledge that Miguel de Cervantes, at the ripe old age of 58, after a lifetime of failures, finally succeeded in writing a classic that has endured the passage of time (this year we celebrate the 400^th anniversary of its publication). I would never assume to place my writings alongside his—God forbid I ever develop an exaggerated sense of my small contribution to Latina and Latino letters. But . . . still . . . it’s comforting to know that compared to the author of Don Quijote de la Mancha, I’m somewhat precocious.