Lynch is a freelance writer in northern New Mexico. In the following essay, she explores the way the main character in "Bad Influence" negotiates the boundaries between childhood and adulthood and between New Jersey and Puerto Rico.

The collection An Island Like You opens with a poem entitled "Day in the Barrio". This poem describes life in the New Jersey neighborhood that Rita, the main character in the story "Bad Influence" calls home, a place humming with noise, people, and activity. In its color and music it is reminiscent of Puerto Rico, while in its urbanity it is entirely mainland U.S. The last four lines of the poem sum up the unifying theme of the stories that follow:

Keeping company with the pigeons, you watch the
people below / Flowing in currents on the street where
you live / Each one alone in a crowd, / Each one an...