After the Hurricane
A Novel
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- ¥1,500
発行者による作品情報
Named by Etaf Rum as one of the Best Beach Reads of All Time for "Read with Jenna!"
Reminiscent of Gabriela Garcia’s Of Women and Salt, Leah Franqui brings us an engrossing, deeply personal novel with a mystery at its heart as a daughter returns to Puerto Rico to search for her troubled father, who has gone missing after Hurricane Maria.
From the outside, Elena Vega’s life appears to be an easy one: the only child of two professional parents, private school, NYU. But her twenties are aimless and lacking in connection. Something has always been amiss in her life: her father, the brilliant but deeply troubled Santiago Vega.
Born in rural Puerto Rico, Santiago arrived in New York as a small child. His harsh, mercurial father returned to the island, leaving Santiago to be raised by his mentally ill mother and his formidable grandmother. An outstanding student, he followed scholarships to Stanford, then Yale Law, marrying Elena’s mother along the way. Santiago is the shining star of his migrant family—the one who made it out and struck it rich. But he is a haunted man, plagued by trauma, bipolar disorder, and alcoholism. He’s lost contact with Elena over the years and returned to San Juan to wrestle his demons alone.
Then Hurricane Maria strikes, and Santiago vanishes. Desperate to know what happened to the father she once adored, Elena returns to Puerto Rico, a place she loved as a child but hasn’t seen in years. There she must unravel the truth about who her father is, crisscrossing the storm-swept island and reaching deep into his family tree to find relatives she’s never met, each of whom seems to possess a clue about Santiago’s fate.
A compelling mystery unfolds, as Elena is reunited with family, and with a place she loved and lost—the island of Puerto Rico, which is itself a character in this book. It’s a story of connection, migration, striving, love, and loss, illuminated by humor and affection, written by a novelist at the height of her gifts.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Franqui's heartfelt latest (after Mother Land) follows a woman searching Puerto Rico for her troubled father months after Hurricane Maria. Elena Vega, 30, has always had a complicated relationship with her father, Santiago, a Puerto Rican raised in New York City who never shared anything about his life before he became a successful attorney. Then he's reported missing in San Juan. Flashbacks to Santiago's upbringing reveal a life marked by poverty, violent relatives, and his mother's mental illness. By weaving in Elena's memories of her father, Franqui shows how Elena's lifelong inability to form a deep connection with others is a result of her parents' determination to keep Santiago's demons a secret. Elena travels from New York to look for him, with no clues to his whereabouts or whether he is alive or dead. His home, once a historical gem in Old San Juan, is now in ruins. Old photos found in the house and sightings by neighbors give Elena clues to where Santiago might be, and in poignant passages, an aunt tells her stories about Santiago's early struggles. The sad reckoning becomes a travelogue of sorts as Elena drives around the island, where blue-hued waters and lush greenery remain amid scenes of devastation months after the storm. It adds up to a moving reflection on love and loss.
