Book Club Reads The Cemetery of Untold Stories by Julia Alvarez
Only one other member besides myself loved this book, and I loved reading it twice—my second time more enjoyable because of its familiarity. The biggest gripes our readers had was that the complication of so many stories and characters made reading the book “too much work,” and that “ghosts talking to each other was a bridge too far.” That made me laugh. Another reader who couldn’t attend our Zoom session asked me why ghosts shouldn’t talk to each other. I laughed again.
The basic premise is that a successful novelist late in life inherits untenable land in her native country of the Dominican Republic. She decides, with her sculptor friend, to create it as a cemetery for her unfinished manuscripts full of stories she didn’t feel she had the right to tell. Many tales are loaded with abuse and suffering mostly at the hands of a vicious dictator.
When the spirits within those stories begin telling them to the groundskeeper and each other, a whirlwind of connections among all the characters, living and dead, takes on a life of its own.
I highly recommend this novel for readers who enjoy complex, braided plots and don’t mind referring back to previously read pages to get a grip on what they’ve read. This book also serves as a cautionary tale for writers who have stacks of unpublished manuscripts and know not what to do with them.
Beth Buechler
Community Contributor
Federation Book Club meets via Zoom at 4 PM on the 2nd Thursday of the month. Contact info@thejewishfed.org with “Book Club” in the subject to get involved.
Upcoming Book Discussions:
(SUBJECT TO CHANGE)
April 10: The Bird Hotel by Joyce Maynard
May 8: Bridgerton (The Duke & I) by Julia Quinn
June 12: Tell the Wolves I’m Home by Carol Rifka Vrunt
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