A Place Where the Sea Remembers

A series of interconnected stories, with the final chapter closing the loop from the opening chapter. Since we spend so little time with any one character, I didn't feel especially invested in the story's final tragedy. But one chapter moved me to tears, as the man and his son were able to reach one another past the barriers of grief and guilt.

Each chapter of this book tells of a different character in the city of Santiago - almost like a book of short stories, but woven together to show a complete picture of life in this small village. Simply, elegantly written - a quick read.

I didn't want to put it down until I finished it. What a gem of a book!

Powerful little linked stories. Recommended.

From 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 show more 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. show less

See my blog note on it:

http://gypsylibrarian.blogspot.com/2005/04/booknote-place-where-sea-remembers.ht...