Review: Writing the motherland

As I prepare for an artists retreat to Puerto Rico with my sisters of the #notwhite collective, Esmeralda Santiago’s latest novel “Las Madres” is a fitting literary companion for a week with 12 women artists who support and love each other like the characters of this dynamic and riveting novel.

The title derives from the name protagonists Luz, Shirley and Ada give themselves: “Las Madres” to daughters Graciela and Marysol. Interweaving events in 1975, when the story begins, with the 2017 aftermath of hurricane-ravaged Puerto Rico, Ms. Santiago creates a tapestry of family, gender, race, sexuality and disability.

As in her previous books, Ms. Santiago unapologetically centers the female voice — from her trio of memoirs that include the groundbreaking 1993 autobiography “When I was Puerto Rican” to her novel “América’s Dream.” The strength of the women in her life in the characters who prevail despite dire circumstances and adversity.

In “Las Madres,” the reader meets Luz Peña Fuentes, a brilliant 15-year-old ballerina who is the only Black student at her ballet academy. She is excited to attend a long-anticipated masterclass, but when she meets the revered guest artist, she is faced with racist, dehumanizing brutality that unleashes a cascade of trauma. She is soon orphaned by a fatal car accident while sustaining debilitating brain and spinal injuries.

Luz’s memory loss loosely evokes the real-life brain trauma Ms. Santiago experienced in 2008 while working on her novel “Conquistadora.” The author had an ischemic stroke in an area of the brain associated with understanding language. Unable to comprehend her own writing, she relearned English and Spanish by studying children’s picture books and listening to classic literature on audiobooks. Miraculously, 18 months later she completed her epic novel.

Unlike Ms. Santiago, Luz is unable to recover her memory fully: She suffers from spells in which she loses contact with reality. Her amnesia shapes the following decades of her life that continue to be punctuated with tragedy. To help Luz and her adult daughter Marysol stitch together fragments of the past, Graciela plans a trip for Las Madres to Puerto Rico. However, back-to-back hurricanes devastate the island, and Ms. Santiago takes the reader on a visceral and gripping journey rendered in incredible detail.

One particularly powerful chapter illustrates the humanity she brings to the portrayal of both the victims and survivors of Hurricane Maria. She frames this intention in the book’s front matter: “The conquest of our hemisphere meant the erasure of our clan and familial names. In this novel, I endeavor to name even minor characters to honor the historically nameless.” Dedicated to the people of Puerto Rico, “Las Madres” is a stunning homage to Puerto Rican pride and resilience.

Integral to her own pride and resilience is resistance and desire for sovereignty. The novelist writes in the book’s coda: “As a Puerto Rican who lives in the United States, I ache for the place where I was born and its people, here and there. I rage at the laws that force us to live as subjects of a government that refuses to acknowledge Puerto Rico is a colony and treats its people with disdain as second-class citizens even though it was their idea, not ours, that we be born, live, fight for, and die with the USA flag over our heads.”

Although my one-week retreat offers only a glimpse into a country with such historical depth and complexity, I am inspired by Esmeralda Santiago to meet Puerto Rican artists and explore with the #notwhite collective what rematriation, decolonization and liberation might mean for shared humanity.

Veronica Corpuz is an interdisciplinary poet who explores themes of grief, culture and identity through photography, collage and mixed media.

First Published August 11, 2023, 7:37pm