As you’ve seen in my previous posts, Isabel Allende is my favorite author, and I’ve reviewed her quite a bit, as I love reading her novels. But this novel is very different from many of her others. Firstly, it takes place in Brooklyn, New York in the 60’s, during the biggest snowstorm the city has ever seen. The story starts with a small car accident between an older university professor, Richard Bowmaster, and Evelyn Ortega, a young undocumented immigrant from Guatemala. To help him navigate this difficult situation, he asks his tenant and fellow colleague Lucia Maraz for advice.
This is where the novel starts and throughout the pages, we learn more about these three characters – their past, their present and their hopes for the future. We understand how their lives intertwine far past the accident and understand the struggles they face: solitude, political inequality, and of course, love.
The book explores these themes but one that is present in not only this piece of work but in many novels by great Latin American writers such as Allende, is immigration. There are hundreds of thousands of immigrant stories that exist and although many of them are different, they all share one thing in common: the struggle of identity. A large part of moving to a new country is assimilating to the new culture and in many cases, language. How can one keep the ties to their culture, hold onto their old identity while trying to forge a new one? This novel has undertones of this great question that many immigrants face to this day. Therefore, while this novel might not be one of her greatest, it is still a great one. Like many of Allende’s works, this can be found in English, but I do suggest trying to read it in Spanish if you’re intermediate, as Allende’s writing is very clear. You can easily get it online anywhere, particularly Amazon. Pick up a copy today and enjoy this original work by Allende and hopefully you’ll be as pleasantly surprised by how good the work is like I was.
Rating:
Comments