Mothers
A Novel
-
- $14.99
Publisher Description
From the author of Witches, a gripping, kaleidoscopic tale of two women in 1940s Mexico—one whose daughter has just been kidnapped and another who has just adopted a little girl
When the kidnapping of a little girl shocks the Mexican capital, the lives of two very different women become forever intertwined. Gloria Felipe lives a comfortable upper-class life with her husband and five children. Nuria Valencia comes from a working-class background and has been desperately trying to get pregnant in order to save her marriage. After traditional methods produce no results, she subjects herself to horrific fertility treatments designed and administered by men, and ultimately tries to adopt but is rejected on the basis that a woman in her early thirties is too old to adopt a baby. Failed time and again by the system and about to lose hope, she is presented with an opportunity that seems almost too good to be true.
Through the eyes of a wry unnamed narrator, we witness the battle of the Felipe family to recover their youngest member and the anguished attempts of the Valencia family to save their daughter from potential danger. With the twists and turns of a thriller, and Brenda Lozano's sharp yet poignant sense of humor, the novel asks how far mothers are willing to go in the name of love for their children, and at what cost.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
From Mexican writer Lozano (Witches) comes a smashing novel set in 1946, as a wave of kidnappings shock and scandalize northern Mexico. Gloria Felipe, mother of five, discovers one morning that her youngest daughter, also named Gloria, has vanished while playing hopscotch. The police, led by Capt. Ruben Dario "Two Poems" Hernandez, come to Felipe's aid, but are stymied by false leads from opportunists looking for a quick payday. The real culprit is a working-class woman named Nuria Valencia Perez, who has been struggling to conceive. Nuria rechristens the younger Gloria as Agustina and forcibly adopts her into her own struggling family while keeping her under lock and key. What ensues is equal parts detective story, family drama, and social novel, as Two Poems's daring rescue attempts are intercut with Gloria's and Nuria's efforts to keep their families together and earn approval as women capable of motherhood. "There's no greater force in the world than desire," Lozano writes. "There's nothing more dangerous than a mother." Through newspaper clippings, interior monologues, and set pieces in police stations, orphanages, and other institutions, Lozano crafts a darkly comic and deeply human narrative. It's an unforgettable portrait of maternal envy gone mad.
