No One Will See Me Cry follows the lives of the "lost causes" Joaquin Buitrago, a morphine-addicted photographer, and Matilda Burgos, a prostitute, as they intersect at Castaneda Insane Asylum near Mexico City in the 1920s. Joaquin is convinced that he photographed Matilda when she was working at a bordello years ago and sets upon fulling knowing the life of the crazy woman. The lives of both of these characters casually intersect multiple times before their meeting in the asylum as the author Cristina Rivera Garza plays with time and space in the novel.

The novel never quite takes place in the present as Joaquin and Matilda recount their lives and their inability to overcome their first loves to each other and other minor characters. How the novel unfolds makes the reader question the sanity of Joaquin - who is able to make his world ok with morphine - and Matilda - who tries to convince doctors that she was a much-sought-after prostitute who was admired for her looks and artistry.

Even in the English translation the beauty of Rivera Garza's words come across. She places so much importance on how the characters define themselves through the use of language and their relationships - or lack thereof - with lovers and others that they have abandoned. The novel is poetic in how it is sometimes split into fragments and other broken off thoughts. ( )

Set in the turbulence of 1920s Mexico, much of this novel takes place at an insane asylum. Joaquin Buitrago is a frail man with a long-term morphine addiction. In the past, he made a name for himself photographing prostitutes. Now, he has been reduced to taking pictures of inmates at the asylum, those who have been left behind as Mexico races into the future.

One day, he finds a familiar face before his lens. Matilda Burgos is a strong-willed prostitute who posed for Joaquin years ago. He asks the doctor for her file. In the meantime, they become acquainted and tell each other stories about a past they almost shared.

Matilda came from a poor farming family. Her father was a vanilla bean farmer with his own substance abuse problem. As a young girl, she was sent to Mexico City, to work and live in a big house belonging to an aunt and uncle, Rosaura and Marcos. He is a big believer in work and discipline being able to smooth the rough parts of any person’s personality (like *My Fair Lady*). Matilda becomes his guinea pig. Along the way, she secretly nurses back to health, and develops romantic feeling for, a member of the political opposition. After a few years, she leaves to live on her own, and finds herself in a bordello.

This is a fine piece of writing. It look at people on the edges of society, in the midst of political turmoil, and explores 1920s conceptions of sanity. The author does a very good job throughout, and this is well worth the reader’s time. ( )