Harare Review of Books

336 pages.

First published Aug 8, 2023 (Knopf)

Fiction.

I enjoyed Las Madres, the story of five women who have built an unusual family. They have ties to Puerto Rico, but live in Maine and New York. The story centres around Luz, who suffered a traumatic brain injury as a teenager, and who has needed a great deal of care since. Ada and Shirley, their daughter Graciela, and Marysol, Luz’s daughter, support her and provide that care.

The story goes back and forth to explain Luz’s childhood and injury, and the circumstances around how the family has been formed. I did not enjoy the changes of perspective, and it took me a while to grasp the story. Towards the end of the novel, the family is caught up in Hurricane Maria in Puerto Rico, and we learn about how locals are affected, and how they pull together in the face of neglect from the US government.

It feels like this is mostly a story based on a love for Puerto Rico, perhaps written from the perspective of a homesick migrant for other homesick migrants, but there are many, many threads, including Luz and her health and disability, the support of the women around her, racism, Puerto Rico as a colony, the connections of Puerto Ricans on the continent to the island, natural disasters, the importance of community in Puerto Rico, and the complex web of connections between people there. This makes the novel something of a muddle, and to my mind weakens it; however, the emotional current throughout manages to sustain it.

Thank you to NetGalley and to Knopf for access.

Ps. Such a lovely cover!