The Female Filial Bond
Over the past few years, there has been a notable increase in literary works published by American writers with Latin American and Caribbean heritages. These books shed light on their root’s colorful history while exploring the tenuous relationship they have with their new home. Among those who made their marks are Dominican American writers Julia Alvarez and Junot Díaz, Haitian American Edwidge Danticat, and Jamaican American poet Claude McKay. Danticat’s Breath, Eyes, Memory (1994) and Alvarez’s How the Garcia Girls Lost Their Accents (1991) explored the coming-of-age of young Caribbean women who moved to New York. Alvarez’s oeuvre also explores the legacy of Rafael Trujillo’s regime. Meanwhile, Díaz’s The Brief Wondrous Life of Oscar Wao earned him the prestigious Pulitzer Prize.
Without a doubt, the fine prints of Caribbean culture, life, and history have become prevalent in contemporary American literature. The Caribbean diaspora and the pursuit of the proverbial American Dream were among the factors that contributed to this growing subgenre in American literature. The younger generation, meanwhile, is not letting up, ensuring to build on this legacy. Among the recent releases that hit the book stand include Xochitl Gonzalez’s Olga Dies Dreaming (Puerto Rico), Gabriela Garcia’s Of Women and Salt (Cuba), Charmaine Wilkerson’s Black Cake (Jamaica), Cleyvis Natera’s Neruda on the Park (Dominican Republic), and Angie Cruz’s Dominicana (Dominican Republic). Dominicana was even shortlisted for the 2020 Women’s Prize for Fiction.
Adding her voice to this growing list is Elizabeth Acevedo. Born to Dominican immigrants, Acevedo initially wanted to be a rapper before venturing into poetry. When she was only fourteen years old, she2020 Women’s Prize for Fiction. It was in poetry that Acevedo initially practiced her literary skills before expanding to prose. In 2018, she published her first work of young adult fiction, To Poet X which won her the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature. She quickly followed it up with two more works of young adult fiction: With the Fire on High (2019) and Clap When You Land (2020). Each book received critical praise, with the latter being a finalist for the Kirkus Prize. In 2023, she further expanded her literary horizon, taking it up a notch by publishing her first adult novel, Family Lore.
“They are failed by a culture that writes them off as criminal so that they must create their own internal laws. I don’t argue they are freedom fighters. Or are undoing enslavement. I only mean, on this side of the world, every descendent of enslavement, of that inherited and invasive oppression, dreams of an island of their own, a slice of communal freedom, a hard-won respite from a world that reminds them time and time again they are destined to be shackled from every angle.”
~ Elizabeth Acevedo, Family Lore
Family Lore charted the fortunes of the Marte sisters: Matilde, Flor, Pastora, and Camila. They were born to Dominican immigrants and were raised in New York City; the Big Apple has certainly become a familiar setting in the works of Dominican American writers. In a way, the sisters share parallels with the writer. Their mother, Mamá Silvia, passed away in 2009 while their father, Papa Susano has long perished, way back in 1975. They have an older brother, Samuel; he was the only son born to the Martes. The novel opens with a credit-like Table of Principal Persons which introduces the family and provides snippets of their lives, such as the year of their birth, the year of their death, the order of their birth, and even their special abilities. The list also provides other characters who played key roles in the main characters’ lives.
So yes, some of the characters, the four sisters, in particular, were born possessing special abilities. This is fiction, after all. The crux of the story concerned Flor. Born in 1953, she is the second oldest sister. After watching a ritual unfold in a documentary, Flor decided to hold her own wake. This was although she was healthy and very much alive. Death was not something surprising about Flor. Of the four sisters, she was born with the divine ability to be able to tell or predict a person’s time of death, isolating it to the exact hour; it was an ability she has had since she was a child. Holding a living wake, rather than one when she was dead, meant celebrating the long life she has lived thus far and with the people she held dearest to her heart.
Flor’s announcement naturally left her sisters and her daughter, Ona, perplexed. Nevertheless, she pushed through with her plan, going through the motions of a funeral arrangement. She reserved an event hall on the Bronx’s Grand Concourse. She also went through the minutiae, planning the buffet, and the order of the show and the DJ set. She also picked out the “exact photograph she wanted enlarged so it was the first thing all the attendees would see when they walked into the hall.” She also picked a dress Ona would wear for the living wake even though it was slated six weeks later. As she gets caught up in the flurry of activities surrounding her own funeral, her sisters start wondering what the rush is all about. Is Flor’s age finally catching up with her? Or perhaps she had a vision of her own demise?
The novel then moves forward by tracking the reaction of the different family members to Flor’s unexpected announcement. Weaving all of these details together was Ona, an anthropologist and professor. Her research subject tackles her family’s history. Ona explains: “My family comes from magic, and it’s something I’ve known for so long that sometimes I forget not everyone has an innate characteristic that marks them different, that speaks to them like a second conscience.” In alternating chapters and a polyphonic voice, the novel provides windows upon which to view each family member’s story. Tía Pastora, we learn, can filter the truth from people. The youngest of her Tías, Camila, is an herbalist and a healer. Meanwhile, the eldest of the sisters, Tía Matilde is “kindness incarnate, no affinities known.”
“The truth that is the truth, but is also the truth she did not want totell: her teeth shattered. In a dream, of course. The night before she’d watched the documentary. And the pain of the enamel crumbling had been excruciating. And in that dream, when she’d reached fingers nto her mouth and rummaged through the rubble of incisors, canines, and molars, the name her fingers latched onto and pulled from between her lips didn’t have too many letters at all: why, it was barely more than a small, breathless incantation:
~ Elizabeth Acevedo, Family Lore
flor flor flor“
The alternating perspective provides us insights into the different members of the family, including Yadi, Pastora’s daughter and Ona’s cousin. We also learn about their concerns, the crosses that they bear, and the sacrifices they had to make. The secrets they hid deeply were slowly unearthed. Somehow, Flor’s announcement became a catalyst upon which the members of the family reflected on their lives. One character was being undone by the philandering of her husband. Meanwhile, some members of the family felt like they were not getting the appreciation that they deserved. Ona also had her own concern. She had trouble conceiving with her artist partner, Jeremiah. This was on top of the possibility of losing her mother. Ironically or perhaps interestingly, Ona was described as possessing a “magical alpha vagina.”
With Ona’s anthropological research forming the frame of the story, we read about the intricacies of families and the usual and unusual threads that bind them together. The exploration of family dynamics was front and center of Acevedo’s debut adult novel. In evocative and magical details, she was able to capture the faultlines that often create divides between the different members of families. Family relationships can be tenuous. Family Lore, in particular, focuses on female filial relationships. The Marte sisters, despite their individual differences, were closely bound and remained close despite the passage of time. Their relationship, however, is never simple. They have an affectionate circle but it was not without its complications. They are also willing to offer help even when one doesn’t ask. Will the secrets they hold from each other break this bond?
Beyond sisterly bonds, the novel also captured the complexities of first and second-generation immigration families. At this point, memories of the past provide further context. Acevedo provides details of the sisters’ lives and experiences growing up in the Dominican Republic, the country their parents left behind. However, as the story flashes back to the past, a sense of nostalgia and melancholy grips the narrative. Nevertheless, these narrative breaks provide a dichotomy between the blissful life in Santo Domingo, the Dominican capital, and their tumultuous life in bustling New York City. There was a notable omission. Some of the siblings were born during the tumultuous years of Rafael Trujillo’s regime. Trujillo’s atrocities are staples in the works of Dominican writers but Acevedo is a digression because her novel was bereft of any direct references to his atrocities.
Subtly, the novel underscored the pursuit of the American dream. This was further underscored by the details of the sacrifices immigrants had to face: the longing for home but also the yearning for a better future. The sisters and their varying personalities gave the novel interesting textures and complexions. However, it was only Ona who was given a particularly distinctive voice. Keeping track of who is who presents a challenge. It can be dizzying as, overall, the story and writing are uneven. Some backstories immediately grab attention. However, some backstories were underdeveloped but some were overly glossed over. It did not help that parts of the novel dragged.
“Anthropology is where we can look at who humans have been, the cultures they developed around, because of land and language. The rituals they learned to perform in order to make sense of death and war and blessings. And my island in particular has captured my imagination since before I knew that how humans have lived was a thing I could study.”
~ Elizabeth Acevedo, Family Lore
There were, nevertheless, sections where Acevedo’s prose shone. As the story moved forward, Acevedo’s background in poetry emerged. Her writing was lyrical but mixed with occasional bluntness and even slang. The writing, at times, was also experimental. Coupled with the non-sequential timeline, the writing comes across as fragmented. There were also unnecessary details – such as the origins of one of the oldest gangs in the Dominican Republic – that did little to move the story forward. It was also palpable how the narrative lacked prominent male voices and perspectives. Their brother Samuel and the patriarch were relegated to the fringes. The omissions, while palpable, were deliberate and did little to diminish the pleasures of reading a story where female voices dominate.
The book’s title, Family Lore, perfectly summarizes the novel’s two most prevalent elements: family and lore. The magical elements, however, were muted. This was to drive the focus on the intricacies of female filial relationships, between mothers and daughters, sisters, aunties and nieces, and cousins. Affection and love brimmed even though it was not without its complexities. Family Lore was not without its flaws – like families – but it finds power and delight in making women the front and center of the story. While the story commences with funeral arrangements and the lingering presence of death, Family Lore reminds the readers about living, the celebration of life in all its glories, including tribulations and the trials that come along with it.
“We are here, embodied to experience life, and then we are not. This is one journey, and beyond this there is another. There is no veil between this world and that one. They are the same world, the one before, this one, the one that comes next, a string of pearls, ends tied so tightly you cannot feel the knot that binds”
~ Elizabeth Acevedo, Family Lore
Book Specs
Author: Elizabeth Acevedo
Publisher: ECCO
Publishing Date: 2023
Number of Pages: 368
Genre: Literary
Synopsis
Flor has a gift: she can predict, to the day, when someone will die. So when she decides she wants a living wake – a party to bring her family and community together to celebrate the long life she’s led – her sisters are surprised. Has Flor foreseen her own death, or someone else’s? Does she have other motives? She refuses to tell her sisters, Matilde, Pastor, and Camila.
But Flor isn’t the only person with secrets: her sisters are hiding things, too. And the next generation, cousins Ona and Yadi, face tumult of their own.
Spanning the three days prior to the wake, Family Lore traces the lives of each of the Marte women, weaving together past and present, Santo Domingo and New York City. Told with Elizabeth Acevedo’s inimitable vice, this is an indelible portrait of sisters and cousins, aunts and nieces – one family’s journey through their history, helping them better navigate all that is to come.
About the Author
Elizabeth Acevedo was born on February 15, 1988, in Harlem, New York City, the youngest child and only daughter born to Dominican immigrants. When she was twelve, Acevedo wanted to be a rapper before shifting her interest to poetry. Because of her interest in poetry, she attended the Beacon School. It was there that she met English teacher Abby Lublin who further cultivated Acevedo’s interest in poetry. When she was fourteen, Acevedo competed in her first poetry slam at the Nuyorican Poets Café. She also participated in open mics around the city, in venues including Bowery Poetry Club and Urban Word NYC.
Acevedo earned a Bachelor of Arts in Performing Arts at George Washington University. She then earned an M.F.A. in Creative Writing at the University of Maryland. She served as an adjunct professor for bachelor-level creative writing courses. Post-university, Acevedo taught as a 2010 Teach for America Corps participant. She then taught eighth grade in Prince George’s County, Maryland. Apart from being a teacher, Acevedo was a previous National Slam Champion and was also a former head coach for the D.C. Youth Slam Team. She has performed at Lincoln Center, Madison Square Garden, the Kennedy Center of the Performing Arts, South Africa’s State Theatre, Bozar in Brussels, and the National Library of Kosovo. She also delivered several TED Talks, and her poetry videos were featured in Latina Magazine, Cosmopolitan, the Huffington Post, and Upworthy.
As a writer, Acevedo published three works of young adult fiction: The Poet X (2018), With the Fire on High (2019), and Clap When You Land (2020). The Poet X won Acevedo the National Book Award for Young People’s Literature while Clap When You Land was a finalist for the Kirkus Prize. In 2023, she published her first adult novel, Family Lore. Her poems have also appeared in various publications such as Poetry, Puerto Del Sol, Callaloo, and The Notre Dame Review. Acevedo is both a CantoMundo fellow and Cave Canem fellow. She also works as a visiting instructor at an adjudicated youth center in Washington, D.C., where she is currently residing with her husband Shakir Cannon-Moye.
The Pine-Scented Chronicles 