Read July 2023

Two families, two immigrant stories. Samuel Adler was sent away from Austria on the Kindertransport after Kristallnacht in 1938, first going to England and eventually settling in the U.S. Anita Diaz came to the U.S. from El Salvador with her mother, Marisol, in 2019 but they were separated and she's in the foster care system while waiting for her court case to potentially grant her asylum.

It's obvious that Allende cares deeply and knows a lot about asylum seekers immigrating to the U.S. Unfortunately, the story here is superseded by her theme, and the result is an expository, clunky, didactic book that I wouldn't have finished if it weren't for book club. I could pick a sentence or two almost at random to illustrate the style, so here's a random taste from early on: "That afternoon, the stink of dread stirred up by the wind was suffocating, making him feel dizzy and nauseous. He decided to turn away the patients left in his waiting room and close up early. Surprised, his assistant asked if he was ill. She'd worked with the doctor for eleven years and had never known him to shirk his duties; he was a punctual, methodical man." Information about every character is presented in a similar way, and we get an extensive back story for everyone by this detached omniscient narrator that randomly tells readers things that happened before, filling in blanks between time periods (the story spans 1938 to 2020 and jumps in time a little, while mostly focusing on 2019-2020), and even sharing what will happen to a character in the future. The point of view changes among various characters: besides Samuel himself, a woman named Letitia who came to the U.S. after a massacre in El Salvador, Anita - whose first-person narration, as she talks to her (dead) younger sister Claudia, was the only one I could connect with - and Anita's social worker Selena. And then, because I was so focused on the mechanics of the story instead of the plot itself, little things that didn't make sense, like how a Californian lawyer is suddenly practicing law in Arizona with no explanation, really bothered me. I could go on, but I'll stop there. I read and enjoyed [Zorro] several years ago, and I know that Allende's work is highly regarded, but this one was a miss. Not recommended. ( )

This novel begins with the story of a six year old boy in Vienna in 1938, beginning with the terrible night when his father disappears and he and his mother take shelter in the upstairs apartment of a war veteran while their own apartment is vandalized. He is later placed on a train filled with other Jewish children and sent to live out the war safely in England.

Then, in 1981, another child it taken to the city by her father for healthcare. While she is there, the residents of her village in El Salvador, El Mozote, are all murdered by the military. She and her father flee north to the United States and attempt to put together a life in this new country.

And in 2019, another young girl and her mother arrive in Arizona after a dangerous journey from El Salvador. They are quickly separated and while Anita is terrified, she ends up with allies, an immigration advocate and the lawyer working pro bono. Their first task is to find her mother.

The stories of these three children intertwine over time, and that story is both harsh and lovely. Allende is making a point here, about how damaging being left alone can be for a child, but also how desperate a parent has to be to let a child go in the hopes that they will at least survive. She is interested in what happens in the new, strange place, when the people around that child are not necessarily nurturing or welcoming and the lasting damage done, but also the people who are willing to open their hearts to these children. Allende herself founded a non-profit helping children immigrating to the US and her knowledge of the situation is clear in her writing. ( )

The Wind Knows My Name- Allende
Audio performance by Eduardo Ballerini and Maria Liatis
3 stars

I’ve enjoyed several of Allende’s books beginning with The House of the Spirits. I looked forward to this book which, sadly, did not meet my expectations.

This is a generational saga of fragmented families. It begins in 1938 with six year old Samual Adler who loses his family, but escapes Nazi Austria on a Kindertransport train. A second child refugee, Leticia Cordero escapes violence in El Salvador clinging to her father’s back as they swim the Rio Grande in 1982. The final traumatized child is Anita Diaz, a blind Salvadoran refugee who was forcibly separated from her mother as they sought sanctuary in the United States in 2019. There is a clear political message in this book. There is overt social outrage. I am in complete sympathy with that outrage.

Through chapters that bounce back and forth through the decades, the elderly Samual becomes connected to Leticia Cordero, his Salvadoran/American housekeeper and finally to young Anita Diaz. These are wonderful characters. Their historical backgrounds are traumatic but also full of dramatic adventure. There are numerous adjunct characters who are clearly important to the emotional survival of the three central refugees. I wanted to read about the intertwined lives of these characters.

Allende simply didn’t provide the content that her characters demanded. This book has only 260 pages. It read like a Reader’s Digest edition of a much longer book. I was hoping for more. ( )

This book draws parallels between Hitler’s Europe and the plight of Jewish people during World War II and Trump’s America and the struggles of migrants trying to escape violence in modern-day Latin America.

In 1938, five-year-old Samuel Adler is evacuated from Nazi-occupied Austria to London. An orphan, he is eventually adopted by a kindly Quaker couple. His musical career and interest in jazz bring him to the United States. Eighty years later, seven-year-old Anita Diaz escapes El Salvador because her mother Marisol faces escalating violence. Arriving at the southern border when the U.S. government has instituted a family separation policy to deter refugees, Marisol and Anita are separated. Selena Durán, a social worker, and Frank Angliheri, a corporate lawyer, work together to find Marisol whom they think has been deported and to ensure Anita is in a safe place in the meantime. As expected, Samuel and Anita’s lives intersect.

The book emphasizes the struggles faced by people trapped by geopolitical violence and left to navigate alone in a world totally foreign to them. Torn from her family, Anita has the same struggles as Samuel did. Even Frank’s grandparents fled the Sicilian mafia. There are other parallels: the dramatic sacrifices of parents wanting to protect their children. Samuel’s mother has little choice but to put her only son on the Kindertransport if he is to have any chance of survival. Likewise, Marisol has to leave to protect herself and her daughter. The same is also true for Leticia Cordero, Samuel’s housekeeper: Leticia’s father, with his daughter, flees El Salvador in 1981 after the El Mozote massacre which left no other family survivors. The message is that “’No one in this world is every truly safe . . . We could all just as easily find ourselves in similar situations.’”

The subject matter of the novel is so worthy and relevant, but I was disappointed with the execution. There is so much exposition and so little dialogue that I often felt like I was reading a newspaper article that summarizes what happens to characters rather than a novel which shows. The timeline is so lengthy and there is so much information to convey that I felt like I was receiving a history lesson rather than reading a novel.

I think the author does the reader a disservice by her lack of subtlety. I think a more effective method is to allow characters’ stories to speak for themselves and let readers reach their own conclusions. For instance, we are repeatedly told that the border crisis is unacceptable. Why not just show the measures employed and the feelings of those who experience those policies? Successful novels engage the reader by showing, not telling. A heavy-handed didactic approach is less effective than an emotional appeal when trying to persuade someone. Sometimes characters serve as mere mouthpieces of a political viewpoint. Frank, for instance, represents a certain perspective when he argues, “’But we can’t just open the floodgates and let millions of immigrants and refugees in.’” Selena responds by launching into a diatribe about how the U.S. government bears responsibility because for years the U.S. intervened in Latin American politics to defend its economic interests in the region.

Certainly, there is considerable political commentary. The author blames the U.S. for the situation on its southern border and points out that the policy of separating children from families has a long history: “’Enslaved parents saw their children ripped away from them and sold off. Native Americans had their children taken away to become “civilized” in horrific state-run orphanages. Thousands of those kids died of contagious illnesses and malnutrition, then were buried in unmarked graves.’”

I think that the book could use some judicious editing. There are subplots which add little to the novel. If these were removed, there could be more development of the most important characters and events. For instance, do we need to know about Leticia’s three marriages, Nadine’s backstory, and Selena’s family? Are Selena’s romantic involvements really relevant? The magic realism elements also seem extraneous. The author tries to include so many ideas that the impact of the book is diluted.

There are other elements that bothered me. Would a social worker and lawyer devote endless personal time and money to help just one child? A ring of human traffickers kidnaps women and girls in order to torture them and then murders them and disposes of their bodies? Some connections seem rather contrived: Frank has a senior diplomat at the American embassy in El Salvador as one of his closest friends? Does Samuel’s love of music really have to have a parallel with Anita’s musical talent? Frank is expected to become an expert in immigration law after completing an online introductory course? And the ending is certainly emotionally satisfying but I imagine such endings are rare.

With its examination of forced migration and displacement, this book is certainly thought-provoking. The problem is that it is too ambitious; it tries to do too much in a relatively short length (270 pages). It ends up being overstuffed with exposition. I recommend it based on its subject matter, not because of its literary quality.

Note: Please check out my reader's blog (https://schatjesshelves.blogspot.com/) and follow me on Twitter (https://twitter.com/DCYakabuski). ( )