SOURCE: “Ana Castillo's Story of a Worn Woman Who Seeks to Understand Her Past and Imagine Her Future,” in Chicago Tribune Books, September 26, 1999, pp. 1, 3.

In the following review, Martinez offers a positive assessment of Peel My Love like an Onion and commends Castillo's ability to create compelling stories.

Carmen Santos suffers, and we learn from it. The wise and able self-styled “crippled” flamenco dancer of Ana Castillo's latest novel, Peel My Love like an Onion, takes us on a journey through a subculture so esoteric it seems as strange as the men who love and leave and love Carmen, and yet is made familiar by the stirring recollections of peculiar but recognizable inner life.

On the surface the novel covers old ground: a love triangle involving an older, married man who discovers and then shapes a young, beautiful girl with a tragic physical flaw, and a later emotional...