A Place Where the Sea Remembers
A Novel
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4.4 • 7 Ratings
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- $14.99
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- $14.99
Publisher Description
A universal portrait and an insider’s look at life in Latin America in this “vivid, graceful, tautly constructed” novel of love, anger, hope, and tragedy (Tim O’Brien). At the heart of this “profound . . . quietly stunning work that leaves soft tracks in the heart” is Chayo, the flower-seller, and her husband Candelario, the salad-maker, who finally may be blessed with the child they thought they would never have (The Washington Post Book World). Their cause for happiness, however, triggers a series of events that marks the lives of everyone in the small village of Santiago, Mexico. Woven into Chayo’s and Candelario’s story are an unforgettable array of characters: Marta, the hotel maid who reads cast-off American magazines and dreams of El Paso; don Justo, the heartbroken fortune-teller; Esperanza, the midwife who finds new love with Rafael, the shy schoolteacher. Their secret dreams and desires are known only to the omniscient sea and to the curandera Remedios, a healer who hears them all. Winner of the Minnesota Book Award for FictionFinalist for the Los Angeles Times Book Award
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Latina writer Benitez begins her excellent debut novel with a painful event--the wait for a drowned body to float to shore--and works backwards, retracing the myriad, seemingly insignificant steps that led to the character's death. As in Like Water for Chocolate , this novel sympathetically explores the lives of Mexican women caught in a mystical, fatalistic world. Chayo, a flower seller, and her sister Marta, a chambermaid, live in a poverty-stricken village by the sea. When 15-year-old Marta is raped and becomes pregnant, seemingly barren Chayo and her husband, Candelario, agree to take the child. Soon after, however, Chayo discovers that she too is expectant and reneges on the promise. Livid, Marta arranges with el brujo , the witch doctor, to put a curse on her sister's child. Both women bear sons, and a remorseful Marta tells her sister about the curse, which she claims to have had removed by la curandera , the healer. But when Chayo's son almost dies after being bitten by fire ants, the sisters' relationship once more deteriorates and, inexorably, the tragedy presaged in the book's opening chapter comes to pass. Benitez's unsparing vision into the stark realities of village residents' lives offers a poignant counterpoint to superficial vacation snapshots of Mexico.
Customer Reviews
A place where the sea remembers
It became one of those books you did not want to put down! Very touching, made me laugh and shed a tear or two. Recommend this book for sure! ;-}