My latest read—and probably my last one of 2017—is Her Mother’s Mother’s Mother and Her Daughters by Maria José Silveira, translated from Portuguese by Eric M. B. Becker for Open Letter. I got my hands on this review copy at work, one of those few lucky happenings in which a book we assigned for review comes in the mail as a galley a few weeks after it’s already been requested for the reviewer’s purposes. The copy that finds its way to our office is thus free for the taking (and reading), and I was excited to tear into it.
The title of this novel tells you much of what it is; it’s a generational story, following a genealogical and chronological line of women’s lives. Set in Brazil, this novel takes us through 500 years of national history through the lives of its female characters, going from native clashes (and unions) with the first colonizers, to independence, to modernity. But it doesn’t purport to be a history book. What sucks me into this book is the incredible storytelling in each section, and the ease with which we leave one woman’s life for the next. Silveira paints a panorama of Brazilian womanhood, but does it without a single broad stroke; these characters are each given their own nuance and complexity. Though I am unable to read the original Portuguese, as a translator, I find myself stopping on occasion and just admiring what Becker has done with the English language, infusing it with humor and affection and poeticism in just the right balance.
I read the first half of the book in one go while on a plane, which allowed me to keep the constantly moving and growing family tree fairly straight—but when I landed and picked up the book the next night, I had pretty much forgotten whose daughter was whose daughter was whose . . . et cetera. The good news, though, is that it doesn’t really matter if you can’t keep the lineages straight past a few generations. What matters is the simple knowledge that these characters are all related, daughters of daughters of daughters, from the runaway slave to the plantation-owning slaveholder, from the native child stolen from her murdered parents to the revolutionary jailed in a convent in Rio.
This book is an admirable monster of imagination and detail, and still manages to move at a quick pace. A few words from the introductory note to draw you in, before I go back to reading . . .
“All right.
If that’s how you want it, I’ll tell you all the story of the women of the family. But let’s take our time.
It’s a sensitive subject, the family is a difficult one, and not everything in this story is wine and roses.”
“Years ago the man got married and years ago the man became unhappy in his marriage. The man lives in Buenos Aires and he passes his time, or tries to make time pass, thinking about the Aztec Empire . . .”
