Portrait in Sepia
A Novel
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4.0 • 1 Rating
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- $13.99
Publisher Description
“Spectacular story-telling . . . the author’s elaborate skill in weaving intimate emotional detail into the broad canvas of history is in fantastic display.” —Atlanta Journal-Constitution
A spellbinding family saga—the second in an unofficial trilogy that begins with Daughter of Fortune and ends with The House of the Spirits—from the bestselling author of A Long Petal of the Sea.
After suffering a brutal trauma, Aurora del Valle cannot remember the first five years of her life. Raised by her ambitious grandmother, the regal Paulina del Valle, she enjoys a life of privilege. Yet nothing offers protection from the horrible nightmares that torment her. When she is betrayed by the man she loves, Aurora, bereft and alone, decides to unravel the tangled mystery of her past.
An epic story rich with historical detail, infused with atmosphere, and intimate in its probing of human character, Portrait in Sepia is vintage Isabel Allende: a story that illuminates the complexity of family ties and the heart of a strong and unforgettable woman.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
In this third work concerning the various and intertwining lives of members of a Chilean family, Allende uses the metaphor of photography as memory. "Each of us chooses the tone for telling his or her own story; I would like to choose the durable clarity of a platinum print, but nothing in my destiny possesses that luminosity. I live among diffuse shadings, veiled mysteries, uncertainties; the tone for telling my life is closer to that of a portrait in sepia," declares Aurora del Valle, protagonist of the tale. Here, Allende picks up where 1999's Daughter of Fortuneleft off, and, in the course of her chronicles, mentions personages who were realized in her 1987 masterpiece, House of the Spirits. Like her other novels, Portrait in Sepiaspans nearly 50 years and covers wars, love affairs, births, weddings and funerals. Rich and complex, this international, turn-of-the-century saga does not disappoint. The book opens as 30-year-old Aurora remembers her own birth, in the Chinatown of 1880 San Francisco. She tells of those present: her maternal, Chilean-English grandmother, Eliza; her grandfather Tao (a Chinese medic); and her mother, Lynn, a beloved beauty who dies during Aurora's birth. Realizing she is getting ahead of herself, Aurora backtracks, inviting the reader to be patient and listen to the events surrounding her life, from 1862 to 1910. Through Aurora, Allende exercises her supreme storytelling abilities, of which strong, passionate characters are paramount. Most memorable is Aurora's paternal grandmother, Paulina del Valle, an enormous woman who eats pastries and runs her trading company with equally reckless abandon. Like Paulina, Allende attacks her subject with gusto, making this a grand installment in an already impressive repertoire. Major ad/promo; 7-city author tour.
