The Forbidden Stories of Marta Veneranda
Sonia Rivera-Valdes Reveals What Secrets Say about Self
Sonia Rivera-Valdes writes a series of interweaving short stories that raise the questions, are there really forbidden stories or is it just a relative term? Can two people view the same event as either forbidden or normal? In The Forbidden Stories of Marta Veneranda, Rivera-Valdes creates Marta Veneranda, a Ph.D. candidate, researching how individuals view their secrets.
She conducts her research to reveal "the disparity between what human beings commonly consider shameful to tell about their lives and the ignominy of the deed itself" (7). Veneranda's research has a cathartic effect, causing her to examine events in her own life that she has tried to forget. The range of confessions reveals the wide spectrum of secrets that people carry and what they consider shocking.
One element of the short stories that will fascinate readers on a human level is each narrator’s confession process. All of the characters beat around the bush when telling their stories, stalling as they prepare to make their revelations.
For example, in "Five Windows on the Same Side," Mayte Perdomo reveals her sexual relationship with her female cousin almost immediately, but then she proceeds in to tell a long narrative about coming to the United States as a teenager alone and her lack of relationship with her husband (11-14). Humans typically use stalling as a way to justify actions, trying to make sense of their deeds or delaying pain.
Rivera-Valdes illustrates how, on the surface, individuals go about their daily lives as if everything is fine, yet carry a multitude of secrets that shapes them for better or worse. It doesn't matter whether the secrets are large or small. In "Lunacy," the confessor and his lover, Matthew, watch porn to spice up their sex life. However, the narrator fantasizes about having sex with women and utilizes heterosexual porn for arousal. While he is having sex with his partner, the narrator is thinking that "the erotic object is a vagina that lives in my head (56). This story is a reversal of someone in the closet because the narrator's outward identity is that of a gay man, but he secretly dreams of women.
On a similar note, "Little Poisons" paints a picture of a woman carrying a secret that, if revealed, could have serious ramifications. The protagonist confesses the murder of her husband to Veneranda. She outlines how she poisoned him by dissolving two poisonous seeds in his coffee. She devises such an extreme plan because he is leaving her for another woman. Strangely, the protagonist even allows the other woman to move in with her but has a nagging compulsion to kill the woman (89). This story shows how we never know what is below the surface of a person facade.
Overall, the stories make readers think about their own secrets and whether or not they would reveal them if given the opportunity. Rivera-Valdes also raises questions about the ability to go about our daily lives with these secrets. Like the characters in this short story collection, everyone has secrets that are eating at their insides.
Source:
Rivera-Valdes, Sonia. The Forbidden Stories of Marta Veneranda. 1st. New York: Seven Stories Press, 2001.
