Book Review: The Cemetery of Untold Stories, by Julia Alvarez

Guest review by: Becki Bayley

Bienvenida

Three years into our marriage, el Jefe becomes president, and I am thrust into the role of primera dama with a round of official duties. Often, I’m invited to preside over numerous functions, a stand-in for our busy Jefe, Joaquín at my side. A splendid first lady, the papers report. I host endless receptions and dinners, never laughing too loud or voicing an opinion or embarrassing my husband in any way. I supervise the menus, arrange the flowers and settings at the table, deciding where to seat each person – in short, I make sure everyone is happy. Most of all mi Jefe, the center of my life.

I am learning to master that second language of all devoted wives. I read my husband’s expressions for the slightest hint of displeasure – the lift of an eyebrow, tightening of a smile – and act accordingly. In photographs from that time, I am seen standing behind mi Jefe, my face radiant with love. This may sound vain, but I believe I become more attractive. It helps to have a superb seamstress who knows which styles best suit my stocky figure and a stylist who fixes my hair and works magic with creams and makeup. Not that I care a whit about attracting any eye but my husband’s.

Often, after a successful event, mi Jefe praises me. You live up to your name, Bienvenida.

Alma has carried so many stories in her mind for so long. As she attempts to bury them and move on, Filomena is learning that the stories still want to be heard.

Official synopsis:

Alma Cruz, the celebrated writer at the heart of The Cemetery of Untold Stories, doesn’t want to end up like her friend, a novelist who fought so long and hard to finish a book that it threatened her sanity. So when Alma inherits a small plot of land in the Dominican Republic, her homeland, she has the beautiful idea of turning it into a place to bury her untold stories—literally. She creates a graveyard for the manuscript drafts and the characters whose lives she tried and failed to bring to life and who still haunt her.

Alma wants her characters to rest in peace. But they have other ideas and soon begin to defy their author: they talk back to her and talk to one another behind her back, rewriting and revising themselves. Filomena, a local woman hired as the groundskeeper, becomes a sympathetic listener to the secret tales unspooled by Alma's characters. Among them, Bienvenida, dictator Rafael Trujillo's abandoned wife who was erased from the official history, and Manuel Cruz, a doctor who fought in the Dominican underground and escaped to the United States.

 

The Cemetery of Untold Stories asks: Whose stories get to be told, and whose buried? Finally, Alma finds the meaning she and her characters yearn for in the everlasting vitality of stories. Julia Alvarez reminds us that the stories of our lives are never truly finished, even at the end.

Alma, better known as the famous storyteller/author Sheherazade, does not want to continue writing until her mind breaks down. She wants to retire in her homeland and enjoy some peace at the end of her life. Unsure how to properly deal with her unfinished drafts, she decides to use a piece of inherited property in the Dominican Republic and build herself a small house and a cemetery for the drafts of her untold stories. A local woman, Filomena, proves to be her best option for a helper and groundskeeper. Since Filomena appreciates this great job that she needed after her own family dramas, she doesn’t tell Alma when the stories buried in their graves begin talking to her, too.

The two most active stories sharing themselves are Bienvenida, the dictator’s abandoned wife, and Manuel Cruz, a U.S. immigrant trying to rebuild his life in his new home. Filomena also shares her own complicated story with readers. The story lines were all engaging and revealing of the people they involved. The writing was beautiful and the characters’ voices were distinct and told even more by what they shared and what they left untold.

The book quickly felt like an old friend and was a welcome escape to so many different worlds and circumstances. The concept was unique and the book earned 4 out of 5 stars. It was not a straight plot or story and would be most enjoyed by those who appreciate literary fiction or reading a story for its own sake, not just to find resolution to the ideas and conflicts of the characters.

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Becki Bayley is a wife and mother who enjoys quiet time as much as connecting with others regarding their passions. Check out other things she’s up to on Instagram, where she posts as SweetlyBSquared.

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Book Review: Afterlife, by Julia Alvarez

Guest review by: Becki Bayley

Antonia has to defer to Mona’s expertise. Still, it’s a shame how every grand passion has been coopted by some pathology or other. Indignation is now wounded narcissism. Outrage an issue with anger management. Revenge, a post-traumatic embitterment disorder. These old-time passions only exist anymore in Russian novels and on stage, especially in the Met operas broadcast at the Town Hall Theatre. As Madame Butterfly stabs herself in despair or Desdemona spends her last virtuous breaths singing, the victim of Otello’s jealous rage, Antonia weeps with abandon, embarrassed when the lights come up and she is surrounded by her dry-eyed fellow audience members. Catharsis, that’s what she feels, a term she often used when teaching Greek tragedy to her students. Once again, she is reminded how much she will miss them.

How does life change when you only have yourself to answer for? Antonia is finding that it also means all the decisions are your responsibility, which can be good or bad.

Official synopsis:

Antonia Vega, the immigrant writer at the center of Afterlife, has had the rug pulled out from under her. She has just retired from the college where she taught English when her beloved husband, Sam, suddenly dies. And then more jolts: her bighearted but unstable sister disappears, and Antonia returns home one evening to find a pregnant, undocumented teenager on her doorstep. Antonia has always sought direction in the literature she loves—lines from her favorite authors play in her head like a soundtrack—but now she finds that the world demands more of her than words.

Afterlife is a compact, nimble, and sharply droll novel. Set in this political moment of tribalism and distrust, it asks: What do we owe those in crisis in our families, including—maybe especially—members of our human family? How do we live in a broken world without losing faith in one another or ourselves? And how do we stay true to those glorious souls we have lost?

When Antonia’s role as wife ends, she’s not sure what’s left. Almost a year after her husband’s death, she’s forced to re-enter the world more fully as a sister, and then as a member of her community without her husband by her side.

Antonia is one of four sisters whose parents passed away years ago. Now when one sister disappears while on her way to visit the other three, Antonia spends a lot of time in her own head, contemplating the roles and responsibilities they each have in the sisterhood.

Then she returns home to find a very young, very pregnant immigrant without papers in her garage. Antonia knows the important humanitarian role her husband played in their community as a doctor and defender of the underdogs.

All of this plays alongside Antonia’s need to find the right words. She relentlessly remembers quotes and passages from favorite and influential authors who she read and taught to her students. Finding the right words will solve her dilemmas, she’s convinced.

Overall, I’d give this book 3.5 out of 5 stars. The unique writing style of Antonia’s internal monologue felt a bit awkward at first, but charming and beautiful as the story developed.

Becki Bayley is a wife, mother, and reader. She loves sunshine and being clean, warm, and cozy. She also blogs at SweetlyBSquared.com.

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