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: the beguiling appeal of the phrase "Tell me a story"; the difficulty of capturing a story's fullness as a writer; the complicated realities of whose stories get told and whose stay buried. 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.
After a successful career in the U.S. as a writer and professor, Alma has had enough: she's moving back to her family's homeland, not wanting to succumb to madness like a writer friend of hers who was driven insane by a story she could never write. Alma decides to stop writing and "stand empty-handed for as long as she could stand it," releasing the whispering guilt of her unfinished stories. Two of them, in particular, have haunted her: an account of Bienvenida Ricardo, once the wife of Dominican dictator Rafael Trujillo, and a narrative of the life of Manuel Cruz, Alma's recently deceased physician father.
When Alma's cemetery is finally constructed (to the bemusement of her new neighbors in the barrio), 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 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. Nearby, Bienvenida--a woman scorned by Trujillo, but perhaps stronger than he knew--shares her experiences of love and heartbreak with Filomena, causing the latter to reflect on her own life.
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
Shelf Talker: Julia Alvarez delivers a lyrical, thought-provoking meditation on truth, complicated family narratives, and the question of whose stories get told.