First Confession is a fiction novel by American author Montserrat Fontes. It was first published in 1991 by Norton and tells the coming-of-age story of a nine year old girl with both Mexican and American blood, Andrea. In the novel, Fontes explores the themes of inequality, race, and crime, through Andrea's misguided and ill-advised adventures in a small Mexican border town.
The novel's prominent themes on culture have led it to become widely considered as a quintessential work in the genre of Chicana literary fiction. It has been used frequently in Ethnic Literature classes in colleges throughout America. The novel was also Fontes' first and catapulted her to fame and renown in the literary scene.
The novel was critically acclaimed and received largely positive reviews. It was praised by the Philadelphia Inquirer as having "a robust plot and multidimensional characters" and by Kirkus as "an absorbing novel rich in cultural nuance". However, some critics also noted that the novel was not without its shortfalls, including some Fontes' style in some parts of the novel.
