Helene Simkin Jara

True Doll Stories We Remember Helene Simkin Jara

This anthology is a collection of stories people told me about their experiences with dolls. The original idea came to me when I interviewed my Mexican mother-in-law, who used to make clothes for naked Barbies and sell them for five pesos at the flea market in Guadalajara. Hearing her story was very poignant for me. When I would tell people about it, oftentimes their eyes would go off to one side and they would either look off into the distance or down to the floor, recollecting their own childhood and the dolls they had.