In her thought-provoking seventh novel for adults, The Cemetery of Untold Stories, Julia Alvarez (Afterlife) weaves a complex narrative that is primarily about stories. Through a literal graveyard for abandoned stories in the Dominican Republic, Alvarez's protagonist, Alma Cruz, and the cemetery's caretaker, Filomena, reckon with the layers (both beautiful and heartbreaking) of stories that belong to them and to others.
Alma decides to stop writing, releasing the whispering guilt of her unfinished stories. When her cemetery is finally constructed, she hires a local woman, Filomena, to watch over the space. Filomena begins listening to the sculptures and stories in the odd cemetery (per Alma's instructions) and finds that some stories (and characters) don't want to stay silent. As Alma and her three sisters dig into their recently deceased father's life, trying to unearth his secrets, Filomena listens to Manuel Cruz tell his own story--the parts both known and unknown to his daughters.
Speaking in her characters' multiple voices, Alvarez shares the details of their lives: family dynamics, hard work, immigration, love, rejection, grief, surprises. The larger narrative, like the cemetery itself, ponders the question of whose stories receive priority: Is it the privileged? The powerful? The beautiful? Or simply those who find a listening ear? Alvarez also wonders about the layers of stories hidden from one's own family members, the ways a story can change and revise itself over time, and who gets the final say. Mystifying, compelling, and often wryly funny, The Cemetery of Untold Stories is a lyrical meditation on storytelling, truth, family, and the quicksilver nature of narrative itself. --Katie Noah Gibson, blogger at Cakes, Tea and Dreams