Review by Booklist Review
Franqui (Mother Land, 2020) turns her focus from India to Puerto Rico in this moving novel. Elena Vega was born in the United States, but her connection to her father's home country runs deep. Santiago Vega Jr. has had a tumultuous life as a person with bipolar disorder and an addiction to alcohol. When he and Elena's mother divorced, Santiago retreated to Puerto Rico. He's had little contact with Elena since. But when she gets word that her father has gone missing, she journeys to Puerto Rico to find him. The country is recovering from Hurricane Maria, but Santiago survived; while the hurricane's aftermath is a powerful backdrop to the story's events, it's not responsible for his mysterious disappearance. Elena seeks her father while also excavating his unkempt house and going through his possessions. As Elena learns about her father's past, flashbacks in Santiago's perspective take the reader with her. While she is an adult, Elena's story is very much a coming-of-age narrative as she finds both where she came from and where she wants to go.
From Booklist, Copyright (c) American Library Association. Used with permission.
Review by Publisher's Weekly Review
Franqui's heartfelt latest (after Mother Land) follows a woman searching Puerto Rico for her troubled father months after Hurricane Maria. Elena Vega, 30, has always had a complicated relationship with her father, Santiago, a Puerto Rican raised in New York City who never shared anything about his life before he became a successful attorney. Then he's reported missing in San Juan. Flashbacks to Santiago's upbringing reveal a life marked by poverty, violent relatives, and his mother's mental illness. By weaving in Elena's memories of her father, Franqui shows how Elena's lifelong inability to form a deep connection with others is a result of her parents' determination to keep Santiago's demons a secret. Elena travels from New York to look for him, with no clues to his whereabouts or whether he is alive or dead. His home, once a historical gem in Old San Juan, is now in ruins. Old photos found in the house and sightings by neighbors give Elena clues to where Santiago might be, and in poignant passages, an aunt tells her stories about Santiago's early struggles. The sad reckoning becomes a travelogue of sorts as Elena drives around the island, where blue-hued waters and lush greenery remain amid scenes of devastation months after the storm. It adds up to a moving reflection on love and loss. Agent: Julia Kardon, HG Literary. (July)
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Review by Library Journal Review
After Hurricane Maria devastates Puerto Rico, disaffected young Elena Vega revisits the island in search of her father. Santiago had come to New York as a child and excelled academically despite a difficult upbringing; his own father had returned home bitterly, leaving him to be raised by a mentally unstable mother and tough grandmother. Eventually, Santiago also returned, struggling with a host of demons, and for Elena, tracking him down means learning about her family and heritage. From Puerto Rican-Jewish Franqui, author of Mother Land; with a 50,000-copy first printing.
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Review by Kirkus Book Review
A woman's search for her missing father brings her closer to understanding who she is. Elena Vega is a graduate student in history at NYU desperate to connect with her alcoholic father, Santiago, when he unexpectedly arrives for a visit from Philadelphia. His drinking has made it hard for Elena to share her life with him, as he forgets everything she tells him, while his secretiveness about his own past has left her with little understanding of who he is. After telling Elena that he and her mother are separating and that he's moving to Puerto Rico, where his parents grew up, he leaves abruptly without saying goodbye, creating a deep schism leading to six years of only intermittent communication between them. Then, when Hurricane Maria hits the island and Santiago goes missing, Elena's mother asks her to fly to San Juan to try to find him, a mission Elena hesitantly agrees to. As she searches, she reconnects with family and learns more about the father she may have lost and his struggle to provide a better life for his daughter. Elena's conversations with people who cared for Santiago as a child being raised by an unwell mother or a college student struggling to make ends meet or, later, a man ravaged by alcohol and mental illness are interspersed with flashbacks to Santiago's own life, giving the reader a firsthand look at the man at the center of the story. With the exception of Santiago, though, the characters are unevenly developed, with the author telling more than showing and often leaning into hyperbole. The novel is also weighed down by brief repetitive statements that stretch a point rather than illuminating it. Describing a family house in San Juan, Elena thinks, "A piece of the past would be hers. A part of history, a part of the island for her, all her own. The house is a piece of her." This multigenerational novel could have been better developed. Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Copyright (c) Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
