Weaving her impressive debut around the true story of the 1919 wreck of the Valbanera, \u201cthe poor man\u2019s Titanic,\u201d Ojito follows the epic journeys of two women, 100 years apart: journalist Mara Denis, a 55-year-old widow with a 19-year-old son, sent to cover a story in the Canary Islands, and her great-grandmother, Catalina Quintana Cabazas, whose birth certificate Mara\u2019s mother has asked her to track down. As Mara picks out the threads of the long-buried story, she begins to realize much of what her mother believes about the family\u2019s history is incorrect, or incomplete. The first big indication is that Catalina\u2019s name is listed among those lost in the Valbanera shipwreck, along with a husband whose name is completely unfamiliar. We readers know the real story, as we are watching Catalina\u2019s life unfold in parallel, first on the isle of La Palma where she was born, one of three daughters raised on a silkworm farm, and then, after her father promises her to an older businessman, in Cuba, where Mara\u2019s mother and Mara herself were born. No more details can be revealed here, but it is a story of complex passions, tragic destinies, and Latin American culture that recalls the novels of Isabel Allende. If Mara\u2019s storyline slows a bit in the last third of the novel, Catalina\u2019s stays dramatic and intriguing with secrets and twists the reader may not have guessed still to be revealed. As profound a role as the sea plays in shaping the destinies of the characters, the deeper force referred to by the title is likely the maternal bond, so central in every generation of this far-flung family, though never uncomplicated. As Mara, who has convinced herself that she is content with her single and solitary life, finds her world filling up with new faces and connections, this often-tragic story takes a hopeful turn.<\/p>","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Weaving her impressive debut around the true story of the 1919 wreck of the Valbanera, \u201cthe poor man\u2019s Titanic,\u201d Ojito follows the epic journeys of two women, 100 years apart: journalist Mara Denis, a 55-year-old widow with a 19-year-old son, sent to cover a story in the Canary Islands, and her great-grandmother, Catalina Quintana Cabazas, […]<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":0,"featured_media":4731,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"footnotes":""},"categories":[6],"tags":[],"class_list":["post-4730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","has-post-thumbnail","hentry","category-interesting"],"_links":{"self":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4730"}],"collection":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts"}],"about":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/types\/post"}],"replies":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcomments&post=4730"}],"version-history":[{"count":0,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/posts\/4730\/revisions"}],"wp:featuredmedia":[{"embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=\/wp\/v2\/media\/4731"}],"wp:attachment":[{"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fmedia&parent=4730"}],"wp:term":[{"taxonomy":"category","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Fcategories&post=4730"},{"taxonomy":"post_tag","embeddable":true,"href":"https:\/\/bookloves.com\/index.php?rest_route=%2Fwp%2Fv2%2Ftags&post=4730"}],"curies":[{"name":"wp","href":"https:\/\/api.w.org\/{rel}","templated":true}]}}